Turkey backs Iran's 'right' to nukes

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Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan

TBILISI, Georgia – Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who is steering his country toward more eastward thinking and away from reliance on the West, is backing Iran's "right to peaceful nuclear energy," according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

But he goes further, warning the West that if it doesn't want Iran to have nuclear weapons, then Western countries, including Israel, need to give up theirs.

He accuses Western countries of hypocrisy in criticizing Iran's nuclear program while remaining silent on Israel's apparent possession of undeclared nuclear weapons.

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Erdogan, who is carving out a mediating role for Turkey among Muslim countries, at the same time called for a nuclear-free Middle East.

In a recent meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Erdogan referred particularly to Israel, which has approximately 200 nuclear weapons, according to U.S. intelligence assessments.

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Israel is the only country in the Middle East to have nuclear weapons. President Obama recently extended an agreement dating back to the Nixon administration of the 1970s recognizing Israel's possession of nuclear weapons and keeping them from being reported under the multi-lateral Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Iran has been threatened with increasing sanctions, especially from the U.S. and Europe, over its declared nuclear development program. The U.N. Security Council and the U.S. already have imposed sanctions. However, they have threatened further, more stringent restrictions if current discussions should fail to get Iran to give up its uranium enrichment efforts.

U.N. Security Council members Russia and China, while somewhat concerned over Iran's nuclear program, do not favor more stringent sanctions, owing to their increasing military and economic relations with Iran.

Tehran claims its nuclear program is to develop electricity, but Western countries believe it is a cover to produce nuclear weapons, given Iran's intensive uranium enrichment efforts.

Iran has made no secret of its enrichment program and recently revealed one such facility located on a military base outside the city of Qom. U .S. intelligence has known of its existence since 2006, despite a 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate claiming Iran had halted its nuclear weapons enrichment program in 2003.

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The fact that it is located on a military base enhances the concern that the enrichment facility is for nuclear bomb production. The Iranians counter that it is on a military facility deep inside a mountain to protect it from possible attack, given frequent U.S. and Israeli threats to such facilities.

Iranian officials disclosed its existence after they learned of U.S. knowledge of the facility and its location.

U.S. intelligence also is aware of other Iranian nuclear facilities dotted across the country ostensibly to avoid attack on any central facility that could knock out the nuclear development program altogether.

"Those who criticize Iran's nuclear program continue to possess the same weapons," Erdogan said. "I think that those who take this stance, who want these arrogant sanctions, need to first give these weapons up. We shared this opinion with our Iranian friends, our brothers."

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