nuclear-news

the long-standing concern that some 50 nuclear weapons are stored at the U.S. air base in Incirlik, just dozens of miles from the Syrian border. Some have for years expressed concerns about the security of those weapons, citing instability in the region.   …….

he potentially disastrous specter of the Turkish government taking hold of American nukes.

It’s not an impossible scenario, but it’s unlikely, said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, a private graduate school in Vermont. And describing the weapons as “hostages” is metaphorical. The weapons are not literally being held “hostage” by Erdogan in that the U.S. can take them out of Incirlik any time it chooses.

“The U.S. could take them out tomorrow if they wanted,” Lewis said. But the problem is that “some people don’t want to take them out, because if they do, they’ll never be able to put them back in.”

Lewis added that he doesn’t believe it would end diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Turkey if the U.S. decided to remove the weapons, although he noted it would be tricky amid the tense situation involving the Kurds.

He also raised doubts about how much the Turks prioritize the weapons, noting the weapons stored at Incirlik are gravity bombs — they can only be delivered via aircraft, and no Turkish aircraft certified to deliver nuclear weapons exist.

The United States also doesn’t keep an aircraft that can deliver nukes permanently parked at Incirlik, either. In other words, Lewis said, “it’s basically a storage depot.”

Although it’s true there are about 50 American nuclear weapons being stored at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, the weapons are in the possession of the U.S. military. Erdogan is not literally holding them “hostage” so much as new developments in Turkey have made it more complicated for the U.S. to move them out. However, the weapons remain under U.S. control, and as it stands, the U.S. retains the power to move them out of Turkey at will. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/turkey-50-us-nuclear-weapons/