Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has denounced the hypocritical policy followed by United Nations members regarding nuclear programs stressing that it should be allowed for all countries or totally banned.
Turkey’s president Erdogan:
Nuclear power should be allowed for everyone or completely banned
25 Sep 2019 - 10:28
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has denounced the hypocritical policy followed by United Nations members regarding nuclear programs stressing that it should be allowed for all countries or totally banned.
Speaking at the 74th session of the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, Erdogan drew attention to “inequality” between states, which have nuclear power and those which do not undermine global balances.
“The position of nuclear power should either be forbidden for all or permissible for everyone,” he pointed out in his address.
Back on September 5, Erdogan said nuclear-armed states cannot forbid Ankara from acquiring nuclear weapons, amid a row with the US over Ankara’s purchase of Russian military hardware.
“Some countries have missiles with nuclear warheads, not one or two. But (they tell us) we can’t have them. This, I cannot accept,” he said in a speech in Turkey's central province of Sivas at the time.
He said back then that Israel was using its nuclear arms to threaten others.
“We have Israel nearby, as almost neighbors. They scare (other nations) by possessing these. No one can touch them,” he said then.
Israel is known to be the only possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, but its policy is to neither confirm nor deny that it has atomic bombs.
The Tel Aviv regime is estimated to have 200 to 400 nuclear warheads in its arsenal. It has so far refused to join the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in defiance of international outcry.
Turkey, on the other hand, is a signatory to the Treaty on the NPT and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which are aimed at eliminating nuclear weapons.
Elsewhere in his UN address, Erdogan touched on the issue of Kashmir, calling for dialogue for the solution of row between Pakistan and India on the Himalayan region.
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