[Drugmachine]

http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2004/may/05_28_1.html

TURKEY COULD TURN TO NUKES AFTER IRAN


LONDON [MENL] -- Turkey could quickly assemble atomic bombs should Iran achieve nuclear weapons capability.

Leading analysts said Turkey could be one of several Middle East states that could launch a crash nuclear weapons program if its Iranian neighbor achieves such capability. The other countries likely to turn nuclear after Iran include Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Turkey has been a NATO member for more than 50 years. But the analysts said NATO was not structured to defend Turkey from a nuclear Iran.

"Were Turkey to decide that it had to proliferate to defend itself, it has good industrial and scientific infrastructures which it could draw upon to build nuclear weapons on its own," Patrick Clawson, director of research at the Washington Institute, wrote in an analysis. "It would be difficult to prevent a determined Turkey from building nuclear weapons in well under a decade."



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Note there is a vast amount of anecdotal information on the web about a Turkish nuclear weapons program including CANDU (Canadian reactor program).

BTW Turkey was one of the first sites where American atomic missiles were based outside the USA. And as the article above notes is a NATO member.