 Next week at this time, you will be having our exam. The midterm will be starting at 9. Again, this board marketing. Well, imagine I'm riding on the board. It's 09009. 9 a.m. sharp. We'll start the midterm exam in this room. Okay, thank you. So it will be one hour and a half. Exams of 90 minutes will be more than necessary for those who have studied it, for those who are familiar with the subjects. So if you haven't studied it already, at least some of the most recent issues, I mean, like the national thread perceptions in the Middle East, I strongly recommend you to go over this book. I mean, this is already available in the reserve section of the library. So it is essential that you make your readings before examination, the midterm exam. Let me ask you a question. Which issue or what are the issues that attract your attention the most with respect to the Middle East security topics? Well, I mean anything. While you were taking this course, what did you have in mind in terms of learning about Middle East security? What was it that attracted you to this course in terms of Middle East security? Because Middle East and security always go together. I mean, these are two names that go very well. Like Michel Mabel, Son Limo Kivon, Très bien ensemble. Yes, Pishra. Yeah, Israeli-Palestinian problem, we have covered a lot of issues here in the class. And this is at the cracks of, I mean, at the very core of the overall problematic that we have in front of us. The Middle East is very much characterized. As you will remember, we have noted certain things on the board about the characteristics of the Middle East. And one major, one particular issue was the Palestinian problem. What else? Yeah, the peace process. Actually, the peace process is something relatively new when compared to the Middle East history. Because the roots of the conflict, actually you can go as far back as you like in terms of centuries, even millennia. But the peace process is something that has started right after the Iraq war, the first war in 1991, which was started officially in front of the public's eye in Madrid. That was called the Madrid peace process. But there was also another process which was going behind the doors. And in Oslo, that was also called the Oslo peace process, which paved the way to the peace process, actually the peace between Jordan and Israel. And Jordan became the second country in the Middle East which recognized the state of Israel, which was in 1994, October 1994, September 1994. So, and of course, the invasion of Iraq is something even more new, which took place in 2003. And this is something that we also touched upon a lot. And something that we will cover when we will talk about, I mean, Turkey's relations with some of the Middle East countries, because Turkey cannot be dissociated from the Middle East entirely. We are not anymore in the Cold War period, during which Turkey was more or less, I mean, part of the West, and of course part of the West with respect to its defense issues and political issues. But also, due to some reasons that we try to talk about a little bit, not so much, Turkey had turned its attention to the West or to the north-eastern border which was the Soviet border. Now, of course, Turkey is much more involved in Middle Eastern politics and maybe, according to some people, more than necessary. Well, we'll talk about it, whether it is more than necessary or whether it is less than necessary. So, we'll talk about this in the coming weeks, probably after the by-ramp. So, what else? Yes? Iranian Revolution. Iranian Revolution and its nuclear program, actually, nuclear program precedes the revolution, which also something that was started during the Shah period. And still has a lot of implications for the region, which definitely should be covered. What else? Because I'm trying to figure out, I mean, which topic we should go ahead with. This is important in the sense that we not only understand what has happened in the past, but also what is happening today and what is likely to happen in the future. And this is important. And, of course, I would like to figure out as to which subject would be more attractive for you, because, I mean, many things are happening around the world, and more specifically in the Middle East. And I believe at least some of you follow from the news and try to understand what is behind all this development, such as the missile defense of Turkey's reservation not to name any country when it comes to a NATO project, where the Turkey should lift its reservation with respect to naming specific doors, citing specifically Iran as a threat or not. And people are confused as to why Turkey is behaving that way and things like that. So all of these issues are somewhat interlinked. Ibrahim? Yeah, I mean, because there is a perceived rapprochement at least over the last several years between Turkey and Iran. Well, Turkey and Iran have been more or less good neighbors, not so much of confrontational relations over the last several centuries. At least the way we perceive it, because when you talk with experts on Iran and they say, well, there is this rhetoric of no conflict with Iran since the Qasseh Shireen Treaty 1639 and between the Safavids, Iran and Ottoman Turks. But this is not true. There have been so many fighting and so many conflictual issues. And even the border which we claim not to have been changed significantly has changed time and again. So, well, this is an issue that most people would like to understand, of course, what lies behind as to whether there is a rapprochement between Turkey and Iran. Is it something new? Is it something that is stemming from the conjunctural developments most recently? Is it a deliberate policy of Turkey to contain Iran or to balance Iran? Or is it something that is just out of ideological stance of the current government party in Turkey? This is something that we should talk about more or less. Yes, other topics that, I mean, at least from your perspective are the ones that you should be more familiar with. Chala. The Niktur Non-proliferation Treaty is something that, of course, is becoming more and more... who is calling it this? Are you nuts? I'm sorry for that. So, this is an important treaty and this year there was another review conference which takes place in every five-year intervals. And this time the MPT is of greater importance, not only for the world, but also more specifically for the region. Because there have been many references made to the MPT when it comes to Iran's obligations. And whether Iran is violating some of its obligations or does it fully comply with the MPT requirements and principles and norms? Well, these are things that we should definitely cover. I think we can talk about the Iranian program and Iran's Niktur program and its implications for the rest of the world, for the Middle East, and of course for Turkey. So, you being the... okay, students here and since this issue is being very much articulated here and there in the media on TV channels among scholarly debates in universities or elsewhere. And by the way, for those who are interested, Mr. Hans Plix. Remember who he was? Hans Plix. A name that I've mentioned here several times. Actually, Hans Plix was formerly the head of the IAEA, International Atomic Energy Agency for so many years. And then he was succeeded by Mohamed El-Barde. And then he was appointed as the director of ANMOVIC. At least you should remember ANMOVIC, right? What was it? Can someone spell it out? What does ANMOVIC stand for? Go ahead, come on. Should I? No, no, no. I mean, just spell out. I mean, United Nations Monitoring Verification Inspection Commission. All right, so, Doctor, actually, Hans Plix Those who are a PhD are very sensitive about being cited here. Doctor. When you say Mr. or Doctor, well, that's something that is really taking so much time and it's painstaking process for those who do really perform it properly. Anyway, Mr. Hans Plix, Doctor Hans Plix, sorry. I will be given a lecture at CETA. Actually, I've never been to their place. It's on Rashid Khalib Chattesi, I think, something like that. You can find from the website and it's at 16 hours in the afternoon and Doctor Hans Plix, I think this CETA meeting is open to your participation. I don't think you need to make reservations or to get permission. So, I would strongly recommend to those who are interested in what happened back then in Iraq and why was it that ANMOVIC not quote-unquote successful in finding the secret weapons, allegedly secret weapons of Iraq. So, well, I'm going there at least and I have some place in my car if you like. Just stop by at 3.30 after my class. I can take you there. All right, let's talk about the Iranian nuclear program. And today, in the afternoon, I think I can use this PowerPoint which is, sorry, available on my website and therefore you don't need to take detailed notes. Just visit my website whenever you can and you go to the PowerPoints. Where is it? Well, this is actually something, this is a presentation I made at the NATO school in Germany, well, 2nd of November already. So, almost exactly for years. Yeah, here we go. This is a presentation which was found to be the best among some 30 presentations for your information as a commercial. Yeah, Iran's nuclear ambitions and emerging crisis, sorry, in 2006. And by that time, the crisis was still emerging and therefore I have to update some of the slides towards the end and these slides, well, they'll still apply, they'll still make sense, but some information may need to be updated maybe with some new developments but in the overall, actually this presentation still makes sense. We need to turn off some of the lights, so is it okay like this? All right, so first of all, it is a very complex issue. So it is not something that you can understand in a straightforward manner. I mean, Ciala just mentioned the MPT. Without proper understanding of the MPT, it may not be possible to understand or to distinguish between who says what and why that country's position is such because there are different interpretation of some of the article, some of the terms of the MPT and therefore, according to Iran, it is something else but according to the United States, it is something else and therefore we should maybe at some point I should be giving some information about the literal issues, I mean, literal issues because without proper understanding of other issues which also have direct bearings, direct consequences on the problem, it may not be possible to fully understand where we stand here today, I mean, why we stand here today and actually what is likely to happen in the future. Of course any discussion on Iranian nuclear ambitions must start with the background information and some of which I share with you already when we were talking about the post-Yom Kippur period and the implications of the Yom Kippur for the region, for the world and it was, I mean, the war between Israel and Arab states in 1973 which was a surprise attack by Syria, Egypt, well on Israel, of course. So the background information, I will try to identify what the puzzle is. It is a puzzle because there is substantial difficulty locating the problem properly understanding the problem because not everyone agrees on the nature of the problem. Some people's interpretation is different than some other people and of course there are major actors who are influential and at some point I will be talking about Turkey's position. Back in 2006 when I gave this presentation in November at the NATO school Turkey was not necessarily an active party to this debate and there were some attempts but not so powerful attempts or not permitted sort of behavior from Turkey's part but then especially since 2008 and onwards we have seen Turkey more on the or featuring on this problem and here it says in the emerging crisis the crisis still emerging. Actually we don't know how it will proceed how it will, or what kind of shape it will take but still it is at the crisis situation, crisis level but yet at least things have still at least as I can see or as much as we can see things have not gone out of hand there are still rooms for containing the problem and maybe who knows solving the problem if of course provided that the parties really commit themselves to the solution of the conflict and as I said there are different perspectives and therefore these different perspectives make it all the more difficult to solve the problem because the conditions that are presented by the parties, if not all of the parties but some of the parties Iran being on the one hand the United States on the other hand their prerequisites or their sine qua non type conditions I mean conditions that they put forward before everything else do not match, are not compatible and therefore they do not necessarily come to a common ground which would facilitate finding any solution. Then what are the problems and what are the prospects? Well back then I suggested certain things which I still stand behind them and because these are long term prospects and this is not an issue that you can single handedly solve overnight by cutting a deal with one or two of the parties it is something that has far reaching consequences for every country involved for the region and of course for the world. I mean nothing happens here or everything happens that happened here has far reaching consequences for the rest of the world same applies to for instance the situation in Afghanistan or Pakistan, India the security situation in some parts of the world actually has some consequences far reaching consequences for other parts of the world so you cannot just look at the problem by only looking at the regional consequences. Let's move forward the background. The background you should be familiar with because we talk time and again maybe not in a in such a coherent manner but not so much exposure on the very specifics of the Iranian nuclear program but it all goes back to the 1950s and it is not only peculiar to Iran because the 1940s and 50s certain developments had also some implications for some countries in terms of thinking at least about embarking on a nuclear program the Atoms for Peace which was a famous speech by the US president before the United Nations General Assembly on December 8, 1953 so he said actually basically let's benefit from the merits of peaceful exploitation of nuclear energy for everyone but since nuclear energy just like any other source of energy or any other scientific discovery has two faces one is benign, peaceful in terms of generating electricity or developing or producing isotopes for some treatments, medical treatments or healthcare curing some illnesses etc and also improving or increasing fertility in agriculture so nuclear energy is something that is good, that is beneficial so let's use this part, let's exploit that part but not go ahead with metric exploitation because with pretty much the same or similar physical infrastructure plus almost the same scientific accumulation, scientific knowledge you may do both I mean if you like but what I now emphasize was to advance the peaceful application and also put a cap or at least put some conditions on the exploitation of nuclear energy well that was of course not a speech coming out of the blue just one day he woke up and he wanted to deliver a speech no, this is of course not the case there is much history to this and it is something that actually he is a fan himself almost obligated in a position to make to deliver such a speech because he was under the pressure of his country's nuclear lobby because as you know and everybody knows the United States was the first and hopefully the last country which has used nuclear weapons actually used against people against humanity in war time which was back in 6th and 9th August 1945 in Hiroshima Nagasaki well of course the scientists might have had prior knowledge about the possible effects of nuclear explosion but still they couldn't keep from advancing that weapon and finally they produced that weapon and they tested first in a desert in New Mexico and then used against people well some people's explanation is that it was a sort of weapon which put an end to the war war 2 and therefore at least yes they are sorry for those who lost their lives hundreds of tons of people but still maybe they prevented others maybe millions from losing their lives because had this not happened the war might have prolonged for so many years in the Pacific against Japan and that many more people well these are all hypothetical issues that we cannot deal with because we don't have any factual data that would substantiate any of these arguments for or against anyway but what that I mean this usage this actual use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the consequences that they have seen put political pressure on the United States administration well of course it is not an easy decision and not only using it against people civilians but also as to whether this capability should be further advanced or should somehow be you know consolidated which the United States took the decision not to go ahead with weapons or development first I mean this is the very immediate reaction of the United States and but and then they proposed to the Soviet Union to take such measures not to develop the imitry dimensions of the of nuclear weapons but the Soviet Union's reaction was well you have developed that weapon so you have the knowledge and knowledge cannot be disinvented so you cannot put the genie back to the bottle and therefore not that you have this knowledge as to how to do it as to how to detonate a nuclear device we don't know it so even though you propose not to go ahead with further advancement further development of nuclear capability how can we make sure that you will not use this knowledge science or technological capabilities that you have accumulated so far against us in the future so the Soviet Union did not agree to the proposal put forward by the United States not to exploit nuclear energy for meter purpose any further then Soviets disagreed with the United States and they of course developed their own nuclear weapon nuclear device at least in 1949 soon after I mean four years not a long time in this kind of process so having seen the impossibility of preventing the spread of this this technology the United States at least for doing its own part for some reasons of course and I will not go into the details there is a sort of a big chunk of writings, books, articles on the United States decision to limit the transfer of technology to other countries so there was this so-called MacMahon Act and the nuclear energy act or atomic energy act in 1947 which prevented the US companies and the government of course from sharing this technology with even the closest allies and well the United States during this Manhattan project which paved the way to the nuclear weapons under the leadership of Robert Oppenheimer and although the United States benefited from the scientific accumulation of many scientists from around the world especially from European countries they in turn did not want to share this technology with their wartime allies the United Kingdom being the closest so that was something which also created frictions between the United States and the United Kingdom which of course in due course paved the way to United Kingdom's independent nuclear weapons capability and eventually to French nuclear weapons capability well anyway what the decision was not to share this technology with anybody else not to let other countries, other firms benefit from the accumulation the US scientific circles but of course that was the US decision which was at the time the most advanced country in the world in terms of nuclear capabilities and that was a decision of the United States alone but other countries especially European countries like Sweden and also Canada of course Sweden, Belgium well they were also scientifically advanced countries and United Kingdom as well France Germany so they were all developing these capabilities and not only that they were developing for themselves but they were also selling technology for instance Canadian firms sold technology in Pakistan over time so the companies which were large big companies in the United States which were developing technology were in a disadvantage position in the international market because they were not allowed to sell technology which at the time of course let them earn large sums of money so nuclear technology or technology something new something highly advanced of course you could sell at a very high price and make a lot of profit but because of the Atomic Energy Act of 1947 US companies were prevented from doing so and while other Europeans and Canadian firms were selling this technology of course under some maybe conditions but still they were capable of selling technology so therefore the United States having seen the impossibility of stopping the spread of this technology instead of preventing US companies anymore from selling this technology the United States sort of came out with a proposal which is known as Atoms for Peace proposal was to okay let's since this spread of this technology is not is going to gain some pace that we will not be able to control fully so why not why shouldn't we control the spread of this technology the United States being part of the game so that was it and the United States the US President by delivering this speech actually wanted to take the advantage and the upper hand in the nuclear market Ibrahim Germany started before the United States in Nazi period in that time isn't Germany has well actually Germany I mean Nazi Germany during the war was working on nuclear weapons and many of the scientists especially Jewish scientists from European countries who were either kidnapped or hijacked to the United States or by themselves by their own free will have gone to the United States before the war or during the war so that was a huge issue because while on the one hand there was this war between the military but there was also a war between the secret services and the US secret services and or the British secret service they were all after scientists rocket scientists nuclear scientists, other scientists whose knowledge would be of significance for some metro applications for the United States or the United Kingdom or if they were not in the hands of the Western countries they fear that they would help Nazi Germany advance its military capabilities and it is a well known fact that Nazi Germany had of course advanced nuclear program, nuclear weapons program and some scientists I think I don't know if I mentioned his name here Joseph Rothblatt he he was the only scientist who quit the Manhattan project before the bomb was fully assembled when Nazi Germany lost war and he said there is no more reason for me to contribute to this project because my purpose was to build the bomb before the Nazis did because some scientists were really concerned and of course some countries were really concerned about whether the Nazi Germany would produce the weapons before the United States so they instead of staying in Europe and or helping the Nazi Germans developing this weapon they fled to the United States or they were as I said with the help of the secret services they have gone to the United States and helped the Manhattan project so that was one motivation or one explanation for some scientists for having contributed to the development of nuclear weapons because many people felt really sorry about the extent of their contribution to the bomb after having seen the effects in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and there is a documentary actually I would like to share this with you and it's in my office and maybe we can share some time about the development of the first nuclear weapon and some scientists were really looking at the issue from a very scientific perspective but then as I said after having seen the pictures probably and since there was no precedent there was no prior example as to what would be the actual consequence of such a nuclear explosion they say they could somehow imagine as to how big the destructive impact or effects of weapon would be but they have only seen after having seen the Hiroshima and Nagasaki pictures so you're right the nuclear science was not unique to the United States I mean the United States and if you go back to the 19th century the last sort of quarter of 19th century you see in Tsar's period in Russia scientists, Russian scientists working on at least of course theoretically whether atom could be split so because atom was known for so many centuries as the smallest unit of any sort of material which could not be split but theoretical physics suggested that and they work on it and then eventually I mean starting from the 1860s 1870s onwards Russian scientists have done a significant theoretical breakthroughs which of course paved the way to work of Einstein and other scientists so Germany, Sweden, Belgium, they were all sort of countries which were capable of developing a certain level of technology but of course it took maybe much more concentrated work just like the one in during the Manhattan project which of course required the concerted efforts of many scientists and a lot of physical financial contributions, material contributions was coming from the US government so without the Manhattan project the bomb might not have been developed so fast it might have taken maybe another decade or maybe even longer we don't know I mean at least scientists, nuclear physicists or nuclear engineers might comment on this but what we know was that in Europe in some countries when I mean in the 1950s for instance and 60s of course and onwards the level of nuclear science and technology was significant and that was of course also the time when especially for quick economic recovery from the damages of the World War II Germany and other countries I mean some of them were physically totally destroyed, some of them were maybe not so much destroyed physically but of course suffered the consequences of the war in economic terms so energy generation is or was back then was very very important and nuclear energy as has been the case until major accidents that took place in the 70s and 80s was seen as a panacea especially after the OPEC crisis in 1974 so therefore technology or at the technological level nuclear science was and nuclear energy was developed in a number of European countries which eventually started to sell this technology at a very significant price while the United States firms were not allowed to do so so that was the reason I mean why the United States after some time decided to change this attitude, this policy and to let the U.S. firms to sell technology provided they of course impose some conditions on the buyers because nuclear technology is not a technology that can be left to itself I mean this is this is not again unique to the United States or unique to nuclear technology sometimes I mean especially at this time for instance we talk more or less state of the art or some groundbreaking technological advances in electronics for instance in the field of electronics and when you go to the producer of some major product and if you want to buy the know-how I mean you may not be given this know-how even if you offer a large sums of money a big price the money that you pay will be relatively speaking not so much significant with respect to the money that they can gain over time in long term if they keep this secrets or the technology or scientific knowledge secrets for themselves so that was the situation making the 50s and some countries of course were trying to keep some of the technology for themselves but also let others benefit from it at a very high price and again for reasons that we will be discussing later on again the United States decided to change its course of action and change its policy and pave the way to the atoms for peace and that is using the merits of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes and will continue with the rest of this power point and I would strongly recommend it to have a look at it I mean because now you have weekend I know you have exam maybe other exams next week including our our exam here and this is available on my website and just go ahead and have a look at it and familiarize yourself with the issues that we will be covering next Tuesday