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.

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.

 

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. ....