Erdogan seeks to claim lost reputation through promoting nuclear armament

Nora Bendari

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said it was unacceptable for nuclear-armed countries to prevent Ankara from developing nuclear weapons.

“Several countries have missiles with nuclear warheads, not one or two. But we can’t have them. This I cannot accept,” Erdogan told an audience of his supporters.

Erdogan’s remarks came during the 100th anniversary of the Sivas Congress, which laid the groundwork for Turkey’s independence.

He also referred to one of his visits to a former leader who sought to make more nuclear missiles, as many as the U.S. and Russia.

“I’m not going to reveal the name of the leader,” he said, adding that the leader was then a president.

“That leader said, we have about 7,500 nuclear warheads. Russia and the U.S. have about 12,000-15,000 missiles. We will build more as well. They will compete for building more nuclear warheads,” Erdoğan said quoting a former president, whose name he did not disclose.

“We asked for smart bombs from (U.S. President Barack) Obama, told him we needed them, but they didn’t give them to us. We’ve asked (Obama’s successor Donald) Trump as well, but nothing’s come of it. So we’re making them ourselves,” Erdoğan said.

Turkey will also begin manufacturing a new type of armed drones in the near future, the Turkish president said.

It is pertinent to mention that Turkey signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1980, and has also signed the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which bans all nuclear detonations for any purpose.

Political analyst and researcher Mohamed Abdel Kader told The Reference in an interview that Erdogan, through these remarks, seeks to imitate the policies of countries that own nuclear weapons, such as Iran and Russia.

He also added that talk about Turkey’s possession of a nuclear weapon in the current period is a dramatic shift in the mentality of the Turkish president in the management of Turkey’s interests.

Participating in giant projects such as nuclear programs, building nuclear power plants, and possessing a nuclear weapon can be employed and used in the local arena to gain back his party’s lost reputation.

Abdel Kader said Erdogan is currently pursuing the formation of wide popular grounds for the incoming 2022 Turkish presidency elections, therefore, he is trying to confuse the country’s media to focus away from real economic and political problems that are ravishing through Ankara.