Congress Urges Removal of Secret Nuclear Weapons From Turkey Over Syria Invasion
President Donald Trump meets with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the G-20 summit. (The White House)
Senators Chris Van Hollen (DMD) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) introduced the Countering Turkish Aggression Act of 2019, which would “levy immediate, serious sanctions against Turkey,” according to a press release from Van Hollen’s office on October 17. It calls for sanctions on Turkey in response to the Turkish incursion into Syria that has displaced tens of thousands of Kurds and puts the fight against Islamic State (ISIS) at risk. It also implicitly calls for the removal of nuclear weapons from Turkey.
The bill requires the White House to impose sanctions targeting financial institutions. It would bar senior Turkish officials—including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan— from visiting the United States and would prevent the U.S. from selling weapons to Turkey. The bill also requires the president to submit a report on “viable alternative military installations… to host assets of the United States Armed Forces currently stationed at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey.” Although the bill does not specifically mention nuclear weapons and the United States does not publicly acknowledge the presence of nuclear weapons in Turkey, it is widely understood that the bill is referencing U.S. nuclear weapons stored in Turkey.
According to the Washington Post, a report from the NATO Parliamentary Assembly this summer confirmed that the U.S. stores “roughly 150 nuclear weapons” in Europe, including approximately 50 B-61 gravity bombs at Incirlik Air Base. Although relations between the U.S. and Turkey have been tense, U.S. officials were not concerned about the safety of nuclear weapons in Turkey until the Turks invaded Kurdish territory after Trump abruptly ordered American forces to withdraw from Syria.
On October 14, the New York Times reported that State and Energy Department officials were reviewing plans to evacuate the American tactical nuclear weapons from Incirlik.
The air base is located just 250 miles from the Syrian border. According to a senior official, those weapons reveal a vulnerability in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The official cautioned that to evacuate the weapons would mark the de facto end of the Turkish-American alliance, which is already strained.
Despite these reports, Trump said that he was “confident” about the safety of U.S. nuclear weapons in Turkey. He also emphasized that Turkey remains a member of NATO, saying, “We’re supposed to get along with our NATO members.” U.S. European Command did not respond to questions about the status of nuclear weapons at Incirlik, saying only that “there have been no changes to the daily operations at Incirlik Air Base,” despite reports that the U.S. deployed additional security squadrons.
Never before has an American ally with U.S. nuclear weapons stationed in it fired on U.S. forces, as Turkey did on October 11, when Turkish artillery fire hit several hundred yards from a U.S. Special Forces observation post, according to CNN.
If the sanctions bill passes Congress, it would represent an unprecedented action by the U.S. against a NATO ally. The Trump administration imposed sanctions against various Turkish ministries when Turkey first invaded Syria, but the president instructed the Treasury to lift those sanctions on October 23. Some members of Congress are going further, suggesting that removing Turkey from NATO should be considered if they continue attacking Kurdish forces.
Trump has been reluctant to punish or sanction Erdogan. Since Turkey took delivery of Russian S-400 air defense missiles in July, Congress pressured the administration to sanction them under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which mandates sanctions on countries that buy weapons from Russia. Although the State Department spokesperson said in July that Turkey would “face real and negative consequences” if they accepted the S-400, the administration has yet to impose CAATSA sanctions.