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Are America’s 50 B61 nuclear bombs really safe in Turkey?

How Safe Are US Nuclear Weapons in Turkey?, VOA,   Sharon Behn 5 Aug 16, U.S. B61 nuclear bombs are equipped with “permissive action links” or PALs, which prevent arming and using the weapon without an authorization code. They are kept on special racks, inside secure underground vaults, inside protected aircraft shelters, inside a heavily guarded area, surrounded by two layers of fencing, lighting, cameras and intrusion detection devices, on protected airbases.

But this particular airbase, Incirlik, is in southern Turkey. The Turkish commander of the base recently was frog-marched off in handcuffs after being accused of involvement in last month’s failed coup against the government.

And that is the problem, says nonproliferation expert Jeffrey Lewis of theMiddlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterrey, California.

“I think in the near term they are very safe,” Lewis said of the bombs in an interview with VOA. “But there are no security measures that would be sufficient against a host state that is trying to seize them, so generally speaking, it is not a good idea to have nuclear weapons in a politically unstable country.”

Although the July 15 military-led coup failed to unseat the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the authoritarian leader retaliated with a massive purge of the country’s military, judiciary, media and educational institutions.

World leaders have reacted with unease.

And so have experts in nuclear weapons policy.  “There are a lot of tough barriers, but incidents and accidents have a nasty way of happening,” said Hans Kristensen, director of the Federation of American Scientists‘ nuclear information project.

Ensuring stability

According to Amy Woolf, a specialist in nuclear weapons policy at theCongressional Research Service, the U.S. has around 200 B61 bombs located around Europe……..Up to 50 of those bombs are believed to be in Incirlik………

Kristensen said, given the political situation in Turkey and the fact that the base is less than 100 miles from the war zone in Syria, it might be time to consider moving the weapons.

“You only get so many warnings before something goes terribly wrong, and there are plenty of warnings in the region now,” Kristensen said. http://www.voanews.com/content/how-safe-are-the-us-nuclear-weapons-in-turkey/3451193.html

August 6, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, Turkey, weapons and war