ALERT Turkey President Erdogan - Claims All US Nukes On Incirlik Base Belongs To Turkey

danielboon

danielboon

TB Fanatic
Turkey President Erdogan - Claims All US Nukes On Incirlik Base Belongs To Turkey
by Vassilis Kapoulas
4/29/21
A statement issued by the Turkish Ministry of Defense regarding the ownership of the Incirlik base and all the weapons systems at its disposal!
The announcement came as a blow because US Pentagon officials themselves did not expect any Turkish moves or statements involving the Incirlik base.

And yet the announcement of the Turkish Ministry of Defense does not simply involve the Incirlik base but refers to the Turkey-US Defense Treaty that was first revealed by WarNews247 a few days ago.
The Turkish media clearly state that this is Ankara's response to the recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

However, the fact that Erdogan dared to raise the issue of Incirlik along with the weapons systems inside the base has caused alarm in the Alliance.
It is known that the US has withdrawn 2/3 of the nuclear bombs from the base for reasons of "modernization"

According to the 1980 Defense and Economic Cooperation Treaty on the use of the facilities, Turkey and the US share them(equipment, weapons).

This treaty "allows" (!) The US to make use of the facility.

Incirlik base is only one of the 4 bases belonging to the Turkish Armed Forces.

It is a Turkish base.

The owner of the facility is Turkey itself.

Our flag flies 24 hours a day.

Incirlik 10th Air Supply Base hierarchically belongs to our Air Force Command in Eskisehir and belongs to the Air Force Staff.

The administration of the base fulfills its obligations and duties based on the orders of the Turkish Administration

Ανησυχία για τις πυρηνικές βόμβες- Άγκυρα: "Η βάση του Ιντσιρλίκ μαζί με όλα τα οπλικά της συστήματα ανήκουν στην Τουρκία " - Έθιξαν την Αμυντική Συνθήκη με ΗΠΑ! - WarNews247 :siren: :siren::siren:
 
danielboon

danielboon

TB Fanatic
Incirlik Air Base becomes focus of US-Turkey relations again

ANKARA: Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base is once again at the center of debates over Ankara-Washington relations, following US President Joe Biden’s recognition on Saturday of the Ottoman Empire’s mass deportations and killings of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1917 as genocide.

Biden’s decision to recognize the Armenian Genocide has angered decision-makers in Ankara who assert that there are no historical or legal grounds to classify the mass killings in this way.

During times of tension between Ankara and Washington, Incirlik Air Base — commonly used by the US for operations in the Middle East, particularly attacks on Daesh — has always been a bargaining chip for Turkey against America.

The base, around 100 miles from the Syrian border, has been used under the Defense and Cooperation Agreement between Turkey and the US since March 1980. The US reportedly stores dozens of B61 nuclear weapons at the air base for delivery by Turkish or American aircraft.

If Turkey were to close the base, it would likely trigger the de facto end of the Turkish-US alliance, and lead Washington to abandon Ankara as a regional partner.

There has, so far, only been speculation that Turkey may lower the US flag at the air base in protest at recent US decisions.

On Monday, demonstrators gathered outside the US Consulate in Istanbul to protest Biden’s recognition of the genocide and demand an end to America’s use of Incirlik Air Base by shouting: “American soldiers, get out of Turkey!”

“Due to its geographic location and being in a stable and secure country, Incirlik is the (cheapest) and most effective air base the US Air Force has in the region,” Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, Ankara office director of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, told Arab News. Therefore, he continued, it has become an “important card” for Turkey in diplomatic relations with the US, but one that can only be played once.

“Once that card is used, we can safely assume that the relationship between the US and Turkey relationship is damaged. Despite all of the mutual grievances accumulated over time, I don’t think we are close to that point,” he said.


Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to close Incirlik Air Base in December 2019, when the US Senate adopted a resolution that recognized the Armenian Genocide. At the time of writing, there has been no similar high-level response from senior government figures linking the future of Incirlik to Biden’s recent statement.

However, Turkish Defense Ministry officials were quoted by Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency on April 28 as saying: “Incirlik is one of our air force bases belonging to the Turkish Armed Forces. It is a Turkish base, and its ownership, along with all the facilities on it, belongs to the Turkish Republic.”

The officials also said that the Turkish Republic “lets the United States government take part in joint defense measures at the Turkish Armed Forces facilities in Incirlik.”

“While the (defense ministry’s) statement may be seen as yet another signal to the US that relations with Turkey are (closely) linked to the fate of the US presence in Incirlik, it seems much more likely, under current circumstances, that it was made mainly for domestic consumption to prove to the nationalistic electorate — maybe also to some officers in the army with nationalistic or Euro-Asiatic credentials — that the government is reacting to Biden's statement,” Karol Wasilewski, an analyst at the Warsaw-based Polish Institute of International Affairs, told Arab News.

According to Wasilewski, Erdogan's reaction has to be muted, as he cannot afford another fight with the US when the Turkish economy is so fragile. Wasilewski speculated that officials may have used the government’s control over the media to create an image that its response to Biden’s statement was more forceful than it actually was.

“It is also possible that the Ministry of Defense officials felt they needed to react to Dogu Perincek — believed to be influential among Euro-Asianist circles in particular — who said the Turkish Armed Forces should establish full control of Incirlik,” he added.

Perincek is the leader of the ultra-secularist Vatan Party, and is believed to side, ideologically, with the government’s recent anti-Western discourse and policies.

Meanwhile, at a virtual Foreign Press Center event on April 28, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Turkey not to buy further arms from Russia, saying that such a purchase could trigger more sanctions.

Blinken referred to ongoing talks between Moscow and Ankara regarding Turkey’s procurement of a second batch of Russian-made S-400 missile defense systems.

www.arabnews.com

Incirlik Air Base becomes focus of US-Turkey relations again

ANKARA: Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base is once again at the center of debates over Ankara-Washington relations, following US President Joe Biden’s recognition on Saturday of the Ottoman Empire’s mass deportations and killings of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1917 as genocide...
www.arabnews.com www.arabnews.com
 
danielboon

danielboon

TB Fanatic
Turkey could seize US nukes stored at air base

The United States has nuclear bombs stored in Turkey at Incirlik Air Base. Will Turkey try to grab them? How will the drama play out?

The US has a large arsenal of nuclear gravity bombs – relatively small 700-pound nuclear weapons with fearsome power. There are different types but the most important are its B-61 series bombs. There are 540 B-61 bombs in service today, with another 415 on inactive status that can be upgraded if needed. These are known as “dial-a-blast” bombs, since the users can set the size of the nuclear blast needed for a mission – anywhere from 0.3 to 340 kilotons. (The Hiroshima atomic bomb was about 15 kilotons.) The latest MOD bomb is capable of a fixed blast of 50 kilotons.

The latest operational version is the B-61 MOD 11, which has been developed into a bunker-busting nuclear gravity bomb that can be dropped by a nuclear bomber like the B-1 or B-2, or from a combat fighter aircraft such as the F-15E or the F-16. It isn’t completely clear what model of B-61 nukes are in Turkey, nor is the number certain, but the generally accepted count of B-61 bombs stored at Incirlik Airbase is 50. Another 40 B-61s were supposed to be committed to the Turkish air force, but according to reports since the 1990s, the Turks stopped training pilots for a nuclear mission and the 40 Turkey-designated bombs were withdrawn.

Could the Turkish army use the Incirlik-based weapons? Unless the Turkish army had the computer codes for the weapons, the answer is that the weapons cannot be used. These US weapons include what are called Permissive Action Links (PAL), meaning encrypted locks that make detonating a nuclear device impossible unless the PAL system can be defeated. Over time, PAL has become increasingly sophisticated and it depends on what is built into the weapons that are in Turkey (models vary in the degree of sophistication) and on a control box set up that also is needed for unlocking the PAL blocks. It isn’t known if the US has already removed the control boxes, but this should have been done as a security precaution. But even if the boxes are at Incirlik, they won’t function without authorization codes coming from the United States.

In the short run, the B-61s at Incirlik are not a present danger. But the bombs are a future danger, since in time the codes can be figured out or the bombs taken apart and the fissile material used to make homemade nuclear weapons.
asiatimes.com

Turkey could seize US nukes stored at air base

The United States has nuclear bombs stored in Turkey at Incirlik Air Base. Will Turkey try to grab them? How will the drama play out? The US has a large
asiatimes.com asiatimes.com
 
Sicario

Sicario

The Executor
W

WOS

Senior Member
Lurker said:
Smart guy would put them on a C17 in the middle of the night and not say a word.

But we have Joe.
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This! But I have to ask: I read that we have special forces types that are smart, what are their thoughts around this?
 
jward

jward

passin' thru
Good point- I'd forgotten that a fairly convincing case had been detailed that such a thing had happened..
Perhaps we will not have to learn the hard way if it were right, or not.

night driver said:
I'm not COMPLETELY SURE that we didn't do that the LAST time Er-dog felt froggy.
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P

Pinecone

Has No Life - Lives on TB
I thought the quakes off the Oregon coast were interesting. I might keep checking how Turkey is doing, too.
 
Dennis Olson

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________
jward

jward

passin' thru
WOS said:
This! But I have to ask: I read that we have special forces types that are smart, what are their thoughts around this?
Click to expand...

There has been some good coverage on that issue here in the past, one such was on the Winds o' War thread iirc..

Oct 23, 2020



We "probably" didn't move them, but we "may have"- - - That We've at minimum drilled their removal a few times in past five +/- years is pretty well borne out by satellite evidence.. . .. There are articles in one of the weekly WoW threads if you want to chase down the info.
Michiana MaJo said:


What’s actually in Turkey, anyway?
How about a bunch oh NATO nukes we left there? At least, I have not read we removed them!
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Last edited: Oct 23, 2020
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