USA Wants to Keep Nuclear Weapons in Turkey

Cables published in WikiLeaks confirmed that the USA have tactical nuclear weapons in Turkey, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium.

A document of the Berlin Embassy dated 12 November 2009 comprises a record of a meeting of US Ambassador to Germany, Philip D. Murphy, and the Undersecretary of the US Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Philip Gordon, with Christoph Heusgen, National Security Advisor of Germany.

The cable includes talks about the plan to remove all nuclear weapons as part of a government agreement in Germany.

Merkel critical, Westerwelle insisting

Heusgen apparently informed the US officials that German Chancellor Angela Merkel was not too fond of the plan but Guido Westerwelle, German Minister of Foreign Affairs, was insisting on the topic.

According to the cable, Gordon asked Heusgen whether the coalition government was going to fulfil its commitment on removing all nuclear weapons. Heusgen replied, "We mentioned that there are '20' nuclear weapons in Germany. It does not make sense to withdraw them unilaterally as long as there are thousands of nuclear weapons in Russia. This must be done bilaterally".

Gordon said that this proposal and its possible results should be evaluated carefully. He was furthermore quoted as saying, "If these nuclear weapons will be withdrawn from Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, it might become politically very difficult to retain Turkey's stock of nuclear weapons".

Harsh Criticism from NATO

After the cable emerged on WikiLeaks, NATO harshly criticized the publication of the cable that confirmed the fact that the USA has nuclear weapons in Turkey and the other three countries. NATO Spokesperson Oana Lungescu said on Tuesday (30 November) that the leaking of this document was "illegal and dangerous". (BB)

Sources: Hürriyet and Milliyet websites.