EXPLAINING TURKEYS NUCLEAR POLICIES
By Richard
Weitz
Despite its challenging
neighborhood, TURKEY has an exemplary nuclear nonproliferation record. Several
favorable factors have allowed TURKEY to abstain from developing its own
nuclear weapons and make strong declarations in favor of nuclear
nonproliferation. Having physical access to the U.S.-NATO nuclear weapons has
been a form of compensation for TURKEY’S not developing its own national
nuclear arsenal. Even so, while TURKEY can boast a largely successful nuclear
nonproliferation record, certain plausible developments could still undermine
it and force a reluctant Ankara to seek its own nuclear arsenal.
BACKGROUND
During the Cold War, the TURKISH government
relied on its membership in the multilateral NATO alliance and, more
importantly, its bilateral alliance with the UNITED STATES to ensure its
security against the Warsaw Pact. Neither the collapse of the bloc, nor the
wars involving neighboring IRAQ, which under Saddam Hussein sought nuclear
weapons and used chemical ones, nor IRAN’S nuclear ambiguous ambitions has
prompted TURKEY to pursue nuclear weapons.
TURKEY’S nonproliferation bona fides
were highlighted by the March 26-27 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul. TURKEY’S
delegation reported progress in adopting international treaties against nuclear
terrorism, supporting UN and IAEA efforts in these areas, holding training
courses for its customs and nuclear workers on nuclear security issues,
participating in anti-nuclear smuggling initiatives, shipping dangerous highly
enriched uranium in spent reactor fuel to the UNITED STATES for more secure
storage, and upgrading the safety and security regulations for its emerging
civilian nuclear energy program, especially the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant
project.
Although the focus of the summit was
on keeping dangerous nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists, the
delegates naturally focused on the nuclear proliferation problems presented by NORTH
KOREA and IRAN. Much of the bilateral meeting between U.S. President Barack
Obama and TURKISH Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan apparently focused on the
IRANIAN nuclear issue. “I believe there is a window of time to resolve this
question diplomatically, but that window is closing,” Obama said after that
meeting.
The ruling Justice and Development
Party (AKP), which assumed office in 2002, has at times deviated from
Washington’s preferred policy regarding IRAN, though its approach has
corresponded to the mainstream international view regarding IRAN’S nuclear activities.
The AKP leadership accepts IRAN’S right to pursue all nuclear activities
providing they have exclusively peaceful purposes as verified by appropriate
international monitoring. Unlike Western diplomats, AKP leaders profess to
accept IRANIAN denials that they are seeking nuclear weapons.
In the absence of convincing
evidence to the contrary, TURKISH officials oppose the imposition of economic
and other sanctions against IRAN by the UN Security Council or by individual
countries. These sanctions can severely harm IRAN’S neighbors and key economic
partners, like TURKEY. TURKISH officials want to prevent other countries, such
as ISRAEL, from employing — or threatening to employ — force against IRAN to
attack its nuclear facilities.
TURKISH officials consider the “dual-track”
approach adopted by the Council and other countries toward IRAN — combining
offers of cooperation with threats of attack and sanctions — counterproductive.
Instead, they argue that the best way to prevent IRAN from seeking nuclear weapons
is to address the underlying sources of insecurity that might induce Tehran to
seek them. Rather than rely on threats and sanctions, they want to offer IRAN
security pledges in return for reciprocal IRANIAN guarantees that Tehran will
not use its nuclear activities for military purposes.
TURKISH leaders have sought to
mediate the nuclear dispute between Tehran and the West.
In 2010, TURKEY worked
with BRAZIL to achieve a confidence-building exchange of enriched uranium
between the parties. After the West rejected that proposal, TURKEY adopted a
lower profile regarding IRAN. But the recent intensification of Western
sanctions to encompass IRAN’S energy exports has galvanized TURKEY, heavily
dependent on IRANIAN natural gas, into action. TURKEY has renewed its
diplomatic efforts and once again offered to host talks on its territory.
See GEOPOLITICAL ANALYSIS AND MONITORING:
IMPLICATIONS
Several favorable factors have
allowed TURKEY to abstain from developing its own nuclear weapons and make
strong declarations in favor of nuclear nonproliferation. These include its
membership in NATO, its strong defense ties with the UNITED STATES, and its
lack of a major nuclear energy program.
TURKEY’S defense policy remains
closely integrated in NATO. TURKEY’S security ties to the UNITED STATES offered
a supplementary guarantee that became important whenever it looked like NATO’s EUROPEAN
members were unwilling to wage war to defend TURKEY from its foreign
adversaries. The UNITED STATES remains Ankara’s closest foreign defense partner
and a major source of TURKISH military technology.
Problems arose during the two
Western-led wars against IRAQ, which led Ankara to doubt the credibility of
NATO and U.S. security commitments. Although the UNITED STATES did offer some
protection, some EUROPEAN members of NATO proved reluctant to meet TURKISH
requests to deploy air and missile defenses to protect TURKEY from IRAQI
missile strikes.
Form Ankara’s perspective, the U.S.
tactical nuclear weapons that have reportedly been stationed in TURKEY for
decades under NATO’s nuclear-sharing arrangement help bind the U.S.-NATO
security dimensions together. Having physical access to the U.S.-NATO nuclear
weapons was a form of compensation for TURKEY’S not developing its own national
nuclear arsenal.
According to public sources, TURKEY
has more U.S. nuclear weapons than any other alliance member outside the UNITED
STATES. Of the 200 or so B-61 nuclear bombs still stationed in EUROPE, TURKEY hosts
approximately 90 of them at Incirlik Air Base. Public opinion polls show that TURKISH
citizens do not like hosting these weapons.
Until recently, it was feared that TURKEY’S
national security establishment would resist the possible removal of the U.S.
nuclear weapons in TURKEY, either unilaterally or as part of an arms control
deal with RUSSIA. But the AKP government has effectively tamed its generals and
they would likely accept a decision of the government to remove them, perhaps
as part of its initiative to create a nuclear-free zone in the greater MIDDLE
EAST.
The TURKISH military does not appear to practice or otherwise plan to use
these weapons under any scenario. They are a symbolic manifestation of TURKEY’S
security links to Washington and Brussels that could be replaced by something
else — perhaps integration within EU defense structures — should these ever
develop into effective institutions — or, more plausibly, the emerging
U.S.-NATO ballistic missile defense (BMD) architecture.
TURKEY has made the controversial
decision to host a U.S.BMD radar, again within the NATO context, in order to
reinforce Ankara’s security ties with the West in the face of the more complex
threat emerging from IRAN.
The decision was both presented and facilitated by
the restructuring of the U.S. missile defense architecture in EUROPE by the
Obama administration, which relocated the initial U.S. deployments out of EAST
CENTRAL EUROPE and toward the BALKANS, BLACK SEA, and eastern MEDITERRANEAN
regions. The new structure, with the interceptor missiles based in ROMANIA and
on nearby U.S. warships, offers TURKEY greater BMD coverage as well as the
opportunity, though unsought, to play a major role in that architecture.
See GEOPOLITICAL ANALYSIS AND MONITORING:
Despite TURKISH lobbying not to
identify IRAN as the main target of the NATO BMD network, IRANIAN leaders and
media clearly consider the decision to host the radar in the face of IRANIAN
and RUSSIAN opposition an unfriendly act. But the decision has proven useful in
silencing Western critics of the AKP’s eastern orientation and has been
overshadowed by the more serious differences between Ankara and Tehran
regarding SYRIA.
The latent conflict for influence in IRAQ between IRAN and TURKEY,
backed by Western governments, has reinforced Turkey’s security alignment with
the West, with many U.S. officials now considering Ankara the most influential
U.S. ally in the greater MIDDLE EAST.
CONCLUSIONS
TURKEY’S government must be pleased
by how the April 13-14 meeting in Istanbul on IRAN’S nuclear program turned
out. Despite many obstacles, the IRANIAN negotiating team joined their
international counterparts in Istanbul, discussed important issues such as
uranium enrichment and sanctions, and agreed to launch a sustained negotiating
process to resolve them.
Although no concrete changes in either side’s
positions emerged from these talks, and TURKEY’S role in the future IRANIAN
nuclear discussions looks set to decline as the negotiating venue moves
elsewhere and the parties no longer require TURKEY as a mediator, the TURKISH
government can be satisfied that they did not collapse in recriminations or, as
some IRANIANS demanded, relocate elsewhere due to IRANIAN-TURKISH tensions over
SYRIA. Even so, while TURKEY can boast a largely successful nuclear
nonproliferation record, certain plausible developments could still undermine
it and force a reluctant Ankara to seek its own nuclear arsenal.
The IRANIAN negotiations will now
move to Baghdad. Wide differences separate the parties, but an agreement that
would limit IRAN’S enrichment activities, make its nuclear program more
transparent, and address uncertainties regarding IRAN’S past and future nuclear
plans, in return for a suspension of some sanctions still seems the best
outcome. TURKEY would certainly welcome a reduction in IRANIAN-related
tensions, even if Ankara lacks the means to achieve such a benign outcome
through its own exertions.
Several developments, however, could
move the environment in a more adverse direction. Most obviously, unambiguous
evidence could arise that IRAN is pursuing nuclear weapons, which would compel TURKEY
to reassess its nuclear weapons policies.
TURKEY’S plans to expand its
domestic nuclear energy program would, for the first time, provide its
government with the scientific, technical, and industrial foundations to pursue
genuine nuclear weapons options, as IRAN’S own development of the capacity to
make nuclear weapons has demonstrated to Ankara and others. But TURKEY’S
leaders might still decide that, even if IRAN developed a small nuclear
arsenal, they would be better off continuing to rely on NATO and Washington as
well as TURKEY’S powerful conventional military, bolstered by national and
multinational missile defenses, rather than pursue an independent TURKISH
nuclear force as a means of deterring even a nuclear-armed Iran.
However, the certainty of these
Western security guarantees is also not immutable.
TURKEY looks set to have a
major confrontation with its EUROPEAN allies when CYPRUS assumes the rotating
six-month EU presidency in July. And the unexpectedly close ties between the
Erdoğan and Obama administrations, which are underpinned by the partnership
that has been established between Secretary of state Hillary Clinton and
Foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu would not invariably persist with a change in
leadership in either or both capitals.
See GEOPOLITICAL ANALYSIS AND MONITORING:
http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.com.ar/2012/02/eastern-mediterranean-sea.html
This article was first published in the Turkey Analyst, a biweekly publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center. © Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center, 2012.
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