Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Brett McGurk, White House coordinator for the Middle East, was almost like a “director” of terrorist groups in Syria, daily Milliyet reported on Thursday.
The former special U.S. envoy to Syria “walks arm in arm with terror groups” and is “a supporter of terrorism”, Erdoğan told reporters on his way back from Russia.
“This man virtually does dispatch and administration for terrorist organisations,” Erdoğan said.
During his time as special envoy, McGurk worked closely with the majority-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a collection of forces who were the main boots on the ground for the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS). He resigned when former U.S. President Donald Trump decided to withdraw from Syria in 2019, and was appointed to the National Security Council by his successor Joe Biden in January.
Turkey considers the SDF to be the Syrian arm of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has fought for Kurdish autonomy for four decades on Turkish soil. The United States also designates the PKK a terrorist group.
Erdoğan called on the United States to leave Syria completely, and said Turkey remained committed to every decision agreed with Russia on Syria, Anadolu said.
According to the Turkish president, more than one million Syrians have already returned to their country. Among them, he said, 400,000 people had settled in the Idlib province, held by Turkey-backed rebel groups.
Agreements with Russia to eliminate the PKK from Syria must be fulfilled, Erdoğan told reporters, calling for increased cooperation with the country on counter-terrorism.
Turkey is in the process of acquiring more S-400 missile defence systems from Russia, a point of contention that has created great tension between the two countries, Erdoğan said.
Let’s recall that Turkey is the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism.
Gagrule has had articles on this.
Three times this year, the US State Department and Treasury Department have cited Turkey as a base for ISIS and al-Qaeda.
Unfortunately, the US has does little about this.
Notice that in hearings this week our “friend” Senator Bob Menendez did not even ask Biden’s nominee for ambassador to Turkey (Jeff Flake) about Turkey’s support of terrorism.
I consider Menendez at this point to be useless and all washed up. It is truly pathetic.
Please also notice that the Armenian Assembly of America (AAA) and Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) have been making no attempt to hold Turkey accountable for supporting ISIS and al-Qaeda.
Once again, those two organizations seem to be working for the State Department rather than for their constituencies.
Again, pathetic.