Sputnik News & The Guardian & Boiling Frogs Post – 2016-07-18 21:56:22
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160717/1043141353/turkey-washington-kerry-erdogan-nukes.html
Turkish Officials Block Access to
Air Base that Houses US Tactical Nukes
Sputnik
(July 17, 2016) — Movement in and out of the Incirlik airbase in southern Turkey was blocked on Saturday by local military authorities, a distressing sign for the future of NATO which stores US tactical nuclear weapons at the base.
“Local authorities are denying movements on to and off of Incirlik Air Base. The power there has also been cut,” the US consulate in Adana said in a message. “Please avoid the air base until normal operations have been restored.”
The closure of the airbase also led to a halt in US air strikes against Daesh. CNN Turk was told by sources that Turkish authorities did make an exception for US aircraft that had already been deployed on mission before the airspace was shut and allowed them to land at the base for refueling.
Turkish officials closed the airspace to complete “anti-coup” operations at the base, where some of the servicemen are suspected of supporting the failed Friday night military coup. Turkish officials have rounded up over 2,800 soldiers as well as at least 2,745 judges who they claim were sympathetic to the coup. Those individuals will now face prosecution for treason.
The presence of the US nuclear weapons arsenal in Incirlik Air Base was further complicated on Saturday when Turkish Labor Minister Süleyman Soylu alleged that the United States was behind the failed coup attempt.
“The US is behind the coup attempt. A few journals that are published there [in the US] have been conducting activities for several months. For many months we have sent requests to the US concerning Fethullah Gulen. The US must extradite him,” said Soylu.
US Secretary of State John Kerry issued a fierce condemnation of the allegations calling them harmful to bilitaral relations between the two countries, a sign of a potentially brewing diplomatic row between the two long-time NATO allies.
US tactical nuclear weapons now rest in the hands of a Turkish government willing to openly accuse the United States of seeking its demise under the leadership of an aggressive autocratic ruler who fancies himself the next Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.
The instability of Turkey which faces pressures from the 2.75 million Syrian refugees seeking asylum, Kurdish opposition, Daesh terrorists, and a military that has shown a willingness to turn on the country’s president may force NATO to ultimately pull its nuclear weapons stockpile from Incirlik airbase before the country descends into chaos.
Turkey Coup Attempt Raises Fears over
Safety of US Nuclear Stockpile
Julian Borger / The Guardian
(July 17, 2016) — The attempted coup in Turkey on Friday and the subsequent closure of the Incirlik airbase in the south of the country have raised fresh questions about the wisdom of the US stationing the biggest stockpile of nuclear weapons in Europe at such a vulnerable site.
Even before the abortive putsch, the potential terrorist threat to the base, 68 miles from the Syrian border, led to a significant upgrade in the security perimeter around the designated NATO area, where an estimated 50 B61 nuclear bombs are stored in 21 vaults. Friday’s events have increased concerns over whether any such security enhancements can mitigate the risks of holding on to such a dangerous arsenal in such a volatile location.
The Turkish government claimed that some of the coup plotters were based at Incirlik and flew aircraft out of the shared base. It consequently closed air traffic out of the base and cut off its power supply, temporarily stopping US air operations against Islamic State extremists in Syria.
“I think the key lesson is that the benefits of storing nuclear weapons in Turkey are minimal but the risks have increased significantly over the past five years,” said Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons expert at the Federation of American Scientists.
“I would say that the security situation in Turkey and in the base area no longer meet the safety requirements that the United States should have for storage of nuclear weapons. You only get so many warnings before something goes terribly wrong. It’s time to withdraw the weapons.”
There are thought to be a total of 180 B61 bombs in Europe, in Germany, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands as well as Turkey. The tactical weapons are legacies of the cold war and largely seen as militarily obsolete. However, in the absence of a NATO consensus on removing them, they remain in place as tokens of US commitment to Europe’s defence. Recently they have been earmarked for an expensive upgrade as the era of post-cold-war non-proliferation comes to a halt.
Ian Kearns, the director of the European Leadership Network thinktank, said: “If they are stationed at a place base that intelligence suggests is a target of terrorists attacks and prone to instability, it is no longer reasonable to keep them there.”
The coup and the involvement of Incirlik also raises wider questions about Turkey’s role in NATO.
“It says a lot about the ability of Turkey to operate in coalition operations if its army can’t be trusted,” said Aaron Stein, a resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council thinktank. “To have rogue air force commanders flying around Turkey poses a lot of scenarios that NATO hasn’t planned for.”
Stein added: “The fundamental understanding of Turkey as of 48 hours ago was that it was a difficult ally to work with, with a risk of autocratic backslide, but it was stable. Now its a difficult ally, with the autocratic backslide maybe going into fast-forward. And it’s unstable.”
Sibel Edmonds Dissects the Turkey Coup Attempt:
A CIA-Gulen Concocted Dry Run
Boiling Frogs Post
(July 17, 2016) — Sibel Edmonds is joined by James Corbett and Spiro Skouras to discuss the recent failed coup attempt in Turkey. We touch-upon facts and elements that are currently being systematically blacked out by the establishment media, and analyze the main actors and agendas involved.
From the CIA and Operation Gladio B to Mullah Gulen’s $20-plus-billion shady network in the United States, and the media’s role in implementing the deep state’s psychological warfare tactics, we leave no stone unturned! Don’t miss this daring and bold discussion, and please help us put out the word by sharing the link to this video.
Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
