Turkey holds 50 US nuclear bombs: what it threatens

Officials are reviewing a plan to evacuate to 50 US nuclear bombs, which have long been stored at Incirlik airbase in Turkey. The decision followed the military offensive of Ankara in northern Syria.

Фото: Depositphotos

Currently, weapons are essentially a "hostage" to Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a senior official in the New York Times reported.

A former U.S. official said Turkish diplomats responded to proposals for moving bombs, saying Turkey would start developing its own.

“The potential problems have been discussed for over ten years. Now we have finally come to the point that this is a problem that we can no longer ignore,” the former official said.

Erdogan has previously expressed a desire to expand Turkey’s nuclear arsenal.

“Some countries have missiles with nuclear warheads, not just one or two. But [they say] I shouldn’t have missiles with nuclear warheads. I don’t accept this,” Erdogan said last month, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency.

On October 6, President Trump announced that the United States would withdraw all troops from northeastern Syria, clearing the way for Turkish air and ground invasion. Erdogan’s troops launched an assault on Wednesday, and ground forces invaded later that day.

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On Friday, the Pentagon said that American troops near the border town of Koban in northern Syria were subjected to shelling from Turkish positions. Not a single American soldier was injured.

In an interview with Fox News, Erdogan's senior adviser denied that Turkey opened fire on US troops.

“I think this is the first time something like this has happened—a country that hosts U.S. nuclear weapons is literally firing artillery at American forces,” said Jeffrey Lewis of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California, The Times reported.

Trump said Monday that US forces in northeastern Syria would be withdrawn from the country as planned and transferred “to the region to monitor the situation and prevent the recurrence of 2014 year” when the Islamic State terrorist group (ISIS) made significant territorial conquests.

“After 100% victory over the ISIS Caliphate, I withdrew our troops from Syria. Let Syria and [President Bashar al] Assad protect the Kurds and fight Turkey for their land,” the president tweeted Monday. "

I told my generals why should we fight for Syria […] and Assad to protect our enemy's land? Anyone who wants to help Syria protect the Kurds agrees with me, be it Russia, China or Napoleon Bonaparte. Hope they are doing great, we are 7000 miles away! »

A “small footprint” of US forces will remain in southern Syria to continue to fight the remnants of ISIS, the president said in a statement. It is unclear when the remaining approximately 1000 American soldiers will be withdrawn from Syria.

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On Monday, October 14, Russian forces went on patrol near the Syrian-Turkish border, indicating that Moscow hopes to fill the security vacuum after US troops withdraw from the region last week.

In a statement on Monday, Trump said the US “will aggressively use economic sanctions against those who allow, facilitate and fund these abominable acts in Syria. ”

“I am fully prepared to quickly destroy Turkey's economy if Turkish leaders continue down this dangerous and destructive path,” he said.

On Monday, EU countries promised to suspend arms exports to Turkey due to military operations in Syria. This step does not comply with the formal arms embargo, but stops issuing arms export licenses to a Middle Eastern country.

EU member states condemned Ankara’s invasion of northern Syria, which killed hundreds and thousands of refugees.

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