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2015-09-23 The Grand Turk
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Is Turkey Secretly Working on Nuclear Weapons?
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 Some months ago it became known that the German Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst - BND) was spying on Turkey. Turkey's political leadership was none too happy. Yet the BND has good reasons to keep a watchful eye on Ankara. It is not only the crises in Iraq and Syria, drug-smuggling, people-trafficking and the activities of the PKK that make Turkey a legitimate target for German intelligence. For quite some time, evidence is mounting that Ankara is trying to acquire nuclear weapons.
Over the past two decades, discussions within the nuclear community about emerging nuclear powers always centred on the "usual suspects": Iran, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Egypt, Japan, South Korea and Turkey. Not surprisingly, opinions as to the likelihood of a military nuclear program differed. In the case of Iran, for example, the evidence appeared solid. By contrast, the case of Turkey was built on vague indications.
This list of likely nuclear aspirants has not changed since, yet the likelihood of a Turkish nuclear weapons program has increased dramatically. Simply put: the Western intelligence community now largely agrees that Turkey is working both on nuclear weapon systems and on their means of delivery. Iran is the model to emulate. Consequently, Turkey has started a large-scale civilian nuclear program, justified by the country's urgent energy needs. In 2011, Turkey concluded a $20bn contract with the Russian company ROSATOM on a large reactor complex. Two years later, a similar agreement was concluded with a Japanese-French consortium, this time over $22bn. President Erdogan also announced yet another power plant, to be built entirely by indigenous personnel.
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So far, so good, one might say. After all, nuclear energy seems like a sensible option to at least partially meet Turkey's demand for affordable energy. However, a thorough analysis of the contracts reveals that these projects are not just about improving Turkey's energy supply. Turkey has also consciously opened the door to a military nuclear option.
| Just about everyone who is interested in nuclear power these days opens that door. Hard not to open it, and given Obama's abdication of responsibility there's virtually no one around to close the door... |
Proposals for constructing a light-water reactor usually consist not just of a commitment to build the plant according to agreed specifications and timelines, but also commitments to run the project for sixty years, to provide the required low enriched uranium and to take back the spent fuel rods. Such offers were put forward by both Rosatom and the Japanese-French consortium. However, in both cases, Turkey insisted that the deal would neither include the provision of uranium nor the return of the spent fuel rods. Ankara wanted to deal with this matter separately at a later stage. Turkey never provided an explanation for this decision.
However, the intention behind this unusual maneuvering is not difficult to fathom. Turkey wants to maintain the option to run the reactors with its own low enriched uranium and to reprocess the spent fuel rods itself. This, in turn, means that Turkey intends to enrich uranium, at least to a low level.
And there is more. The option to provide low enriched uranium to currently eight agreed reactors--Turkey is planning twenty-three projects in total--indicates the scope of Turkey's envisioned enrichment effort. The path that Turkey wants to take is clear: to follow in Iran's footsteps. According to President Rouhani, Iran wants to build sixteen reactors by 2030, which are supposed to be powered by indigenously enriched uranium, although much of this low enriched uranium is earmarked for high enrichment and thus for the production of weapons-grade fuel. Of course, Turkey vehemently denies any intention to enrich uranium. However, Turkey has declared on many occasions that it will always insist on its "rights" deriving from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and that it regards enrichment for peaceful use as perfectly legal.
That the Turkish government is at pains to justify its rejection of an external supply of low enriched uranium while not admitting a national interest in enrichment was illustrated by a statement made by the Turkish Minister for Energy, Taner Yildiz, in January 2014. Yildiz argued that the refusal to contractually settle the uranium supply with the aforementioned companies was due to Turkey's desire to understand the full nuclear fuel cycle. Not only does Yildiz' explanation appear weak; Turkey's declaratory nuclear policy also seems to follow the path taken by Iran: one only admits what in light of the facts can no longer be denied.
Turkey's motives for rejecting the continuous uranium supply by its Russian and Japanese-French business partners may appear dubious; its rejection to return the spent fuel rods to the supplying countries is outright disastrous, as it allows for only one conclusion: Turkey is bent on producing plutonium for making weapons. While reprocessing would indeed allow the reuse of the spent uranium, such an option is merely theoretical, since fuel rods made from reprocessed material are far more expensive than those made from "new" uranium. It is for this reason that reprocessing of spent uranium is hardly being conducted anymore. 
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