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  • Turkish Nuclear Threat

    TURKISH NUCLEAR THREAT

    http://noravank.am/eng/articles/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=6450
    26.04.2012

    Gagik Harutyunyan
    Executive Director of "Noravank" Foundation

    Proliferation of nuclear and mass destruction weapons is the most
    topical issue of the global security today. The researches, carried
    out back in the middle of the 20th century, come to prove that usage
    of the mass destruction weapons brings to the global catastrophe. It
    seemed that after the end of the Cold war between the USA and USSR
    there is no more threat of such an apocalyptic scenario. But the real
    situation is cardinally different. The parties conflicting in the Cold
    war seriously approached the issue and elaborated (especially after
    the Caribbean Crisis in 1962 when world appeared on the threshold of
    a nuclear war) various mechanisms and drafted different agreements,
    which have regulated the "nuclear" relations of these states till now
    and have decreased possibility of mass destruction weapons usage. Let
    us also mention that over that period the US-USSR (NATO - the Warsaw
    Pact countries) confrontation was going on within the framework of
    "deterrence strategy" and "mutual assured destruction doctrine"
    which also reduced nuclear risks.

    Today the number of the "nuclear club" members is rather big (US,
    Russia, Great Britain, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan,
    North Korea) and this number tends to grow. Meanwhile, the "nuclear
    relations" between the Asian members of this club are far from being
    normal; they do not dialogue on the issue, and IAEA's consulting
    functions are not enough to fill this gap.

    Form the point of view of risk assessment the incentives (motives)
    which dictate any country to possess nuclear weapons are also topical.

    Without referring to the precedents of India, Pakistan and North
    Korea, let us try to discuss briefly the current "nuclear" situation
    in the Near East - the region which directly refers to the security
    of Armenia (Rep. of Armenia and NKR) and which is considered to be
    one of the highly explosive regions.

    Though the Israeli authorities do not admit it, this country has
    possessed nuclear weapon since 1970s and they number at least 200
    pieces. Taking into consideration some radical approaches of some of
    the countries in the region to the physical existence of that state,
    it should be admitted that the motives of Israel's possession of
    nuclear weapons are grounded. Of course, there are refinements in
    this issue but anyway it is obvious that Israel acts within the
    strategy of "deterrence of the enemy and delivering inevitable
    destructing retaliation". At the same time Israel is monopolist in
    the region in the nuclear aspect and as air strikes delivered on
    nuclear centers in Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007 showed they do
    everything to preserve their existing status quo. It is clear that
    Israel would have done the same way with its today's rival - Iran -
    if it possessed appropriate resources and guarantees that this would
    not have devastating aftermaths. In this aspect let us also consider
    briefly Iran's nuclear project.

    If we accept as a possible release version that Iran elaborates mass
    destruction weapons within its nuclear programme we have to accept that
    this country also acts in the context of protection of its sovereignty
    and system of government chosen by its people. In other words this
    isolated and sanctioned state, which has strained relations with the
    nuclear monopolist Israel, is, nevertheless, obliged to elaborate
    nuclear weapon as a mean of self-defence. This may seem strange, but
    it should be admitted that there is some similarity in the incentives
    of Israel and Iran in mass destruction weapons issue.

    It is remarkable that in both countries religious-spiritual and other
    conceptions coming from their history play a certain role in decision
    making. This is believed to be conditioned by a factor of mutual
    non-compliance, but rich civilizational past can serve for finding a
    common ground. Taking into consideration considerable activation and
    strengthening of Sunnite factor after the "Arab spring", such scenario
    has a pragmatic grounds either, as possible Israel-Iran dialogue
    would balance, to some extent, distribution of powers in the region.

    Of course, all the aforementioned observations do not exclude
    possibility of US, Israel-Iran confrontation, but, in our opinion,
    the main source of nuclear threat in the region is neither Israel
    nor Iran, but their competitor - Turkey.

    This version is conditioned not only by such an important circumstance
    that this country has managed to establish appropriate "nuclear"
    infrastructures in the spheres of management, science and technology,
    raw materials, etc., which would allow them to create nuclear weapon
    in the near future; it is known that there are other countries which
    have such possibilities either. The nuclear threat coming from Turkey
    is based on a fact that this country's sovereignty and existence are
    not threatened (unlike Israel or Iran) and it can use this nuclear
    weapon rather with expansionist purpose and on revanchist ideological
    grounds than for its self-defence. Such a conclusion is drawn from
    the following circumstances:

    ~UIdeologies which are widely spread and officially supported in
    Turkey (neo-Ottomanism, Neo-Pan-Turkism, Neo-Pan-Islamism) are of
    distinct expansionist orientation and are based on revanchist and
    nationalist doctrines.

    ~UToday's Turkey, basing on the aforementioned aggressive ideologies,
    obviously tends to play decisive role and have its share in the
    geopolitical and global economic repartition of the region.

    ~UTurkey, unlike Israel and Iran, is genocidal state; it arranged
    on a state level mass killings of the Armenians, Greeks, Kurds,
    and Assyrians on the assumption of their ethnic identity.

    This last circumstance, as well as the fact that today's Turkey, as a
    regional country, was formed only in the Middle Ages, come to prove
    that, unlike Israel and Iran, this state does not have appropriate
    civilizational grounds and traditions, which would restrict the
    aggressiveness of its policy, including usage of nuclear weapons.

    "Globus" analytical journal #4 (25), 2012




    From: A. Papazian
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