Free Republic

Why risk it? Even if NATO wants the nukes in Europe, Erdogan’s unstable regime is 68 miles from Syria, the hottest conflict zone on earth. When President Donald Trump and other heads of state meet at this week’s NATO Summit it might be a good time to discuss the wisdom of keeping 50 U.S. thermonuclear weapons in Turkey, just 70 miles from Syria, the most intense combat zone on the planet. Each of the B61 gravity bombs stored at Incirlik Air Base, 68 miles from the Syrian border have a maximum yield of 170 kilotons, or 10 times more powerful...

Turkish autocrat Recep Tayyip Erdogan is coming to Washington, DC, on May 16 loaded for bear.  He has an ambitious agenda and apparently feels he can achieve it all because he holds “trump” cards against the President of the United States. Erdogan and his proxies have publicly said they want to convince the United States to jettison its budding alliance with the Syrian Democratic Union (PYD) and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Kurdish group that has become the tip of the spear in the fight against ISIS in Syria. On this point, they will encounter resistance...

Hundreds of Turkish military personnel working for NATO have been accused by their government of trying to overthrow Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in July. Since that failed military coup attempt, in which 260 people were killed, high-ranking officers at NATO installations across Europe and the U.S. have been summarily fired or had their foreign assignments curtailed. In Brussels, several Turkish officers, who until recently had been assigned to NATO, spoke with NPR and requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation. They describe a tense situation in which they and their colleagues tried to continue doing their jobs at NATO...

Dozens of US nuclear weapons stored at a Turkish air base near Syria are at risk of being captured by "terrorists or other hostile forces," a Washington think tank claimed Monday. Critics have long been alarmed by America's estimated stockpile of about 50 nuclear bombs at Incirlik in southern Turkey, just 70 miles (110 kilometers) from the border with war-torn Syria. The issue took on fresh urgency last month following the attempted coup in Turkey, in which the base's Turkish commander was arrested on suspicion of complicity in the plot.

Snip ...These days, however, the U.S. and Turkey see eye to eye on very little. The two countries are at odds over Syria and the urgency of removing Syrian President Bashar Assad; over support for Syrian Kurds who, in contrast to the Turks, have proved to be reliable U.S. partners in the fight against Islamic State; over the territorial sovereignty of Iraq; and over continuing sanctions on Iran.Though American officials privately acknowledge that Mr. Erdogan is “erratic,” they have given the Turkish leader extraordinary leverage over U.S. policy. The U.S. fear is that public pressure will result in even less...