Information about the transferring of US nuclear weapons from Turkey to Romania is not reliable and intended to show Ankara's current foreign policy course, in particular, the revival of cooperation with Russia, in a negative light, the Turkish political scientist Togrul Ismail, speaking with a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, said.
"In recent days, Turkey's relations with Russia are improving, and those forces which don't like this improvement, are trying to convince everyone that Turkey is leaning toward Russia against the background of deteriorating relations with the EU and the US. Nothing of the kind. The improvement of relations with Russia is the duty of the Turkish state, otherwise there will be serious tension in the region," he explained.
"Turkey's relations with the EU and the US is quite another matter. In recent days, Turkey is trying to get back to its feet, and it managed to achieve improving relations with Russia, with Israel, an attempt to improve relations with Egypt was also made. Unscrupulous media outlets are trying to show that this is due to the deterioration of relations with the West," Ismail said.
The expert stressed that the US is not going to transfer weapons and everything remains as it was.
At the same time, according to him, the relations between Turkey and NATO are completely normal now. "There are no problems. Turkey remains a NATO member," the expert believes.
"The official Turkish authorities complained that the EU has not given the full support to the existing legitimate government, even though Ankara had expected this. And the disagreement with the US is linked to the Syrian issue. However, the US Vice President Joe Biden will arrive in Turkey soon and I think that these issues will be resolved," Togrul Ismail concluded.
The editor-in-chief of 'National Defense' magazine, Igor Korotchenko, on the other hand, suggested that the Turkish authorities themselves could request through diplomatic channels to withdraw nuclear weapons from their territory.
If this happens, according to the expert, the balance of power in Europe in fact will not change. "NATO is our military adversary. They also see Russia as their military adversary. Of course, Russian intelligence will closely monitor the situation," he said.
"But from a tactical point of view, we have a self-contained group of forces in Crimea and southern Russia. We have a strong Black Sea fleet, which is being actively updated now. Therefore, in any case, any threats which arise in the case of dislocation of US tactical nuclear weapons in Romania, will be offset by the adoption of appropriate military-technical measures by Russia," the editor-in-chief of 'National Defense' magazine stressed.
He added that Turkey's relations with the United States have cooled significantly due to Washington's active role in the modeling of the July coup. "In fact, the US was behind this military rebellion. But President Erdogan won. However, Turkey still will not leave NATO," Igor Korotchenko noted.
The deputy head of the Council of the Russian Diplomats Association, Andrey Baklanov, said that the nuclear component issue is very disturbing, regardless of the current political situation. "I have not seen any documentary evidence that the US intends to transfer nuclear weapons from Turkey. But the issue is very reasonable by itself, because there is a very alarming situation in the region and the Incirlik base has been in the epicenter of events during the coup," he reminded.
"Now they talk about the possibility of seizure of nuclear facilities by terrorists. But it also can be done by opposing internal forces or third parties in order to pressure the government. That is why it is extremely dangerous to keep bases with nuclear weapons in such problem areas," Baklanov noticed.
According to the deputy head of the Council of the Russian Diplomats Association, Washington should take advantage of the experience that the United States got in 1961and move missiles from the base in Izmir back to the United States.
The expert explained that this problem concerns not only the US weapons in Turkey. "There is a very alarming situation in the world: 60 countries clearly feel the presence of certain terrorist elements. Given the worsening of the internal struggle in different countries, it is necessary to make an inventory of dangerous objects and return them back to the US," the diplomat said.
"In general, the whole US complex should be rethought," he noted.
"The balance of missile and nuclear forces in the world has been verified enough, therefore, some additional layout will be completely redundant. In fact, it will not give the US any strengthening the defensive might, but rather serve as a destabilizing factor," the deputy head of the Council of the Russian Diplomats Association warned.
