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Turkey in uproar over McGurk

The Turkish media's outlandish attacks on US envoy Brett McGurk hint at the anxiety in Ankara over US relations with Syrian Kurds.
Brett McGurk (C), US special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter IS, and Rupert Jones (L), deputy commander of Combined Joint Task Force  Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR), arrive for a meeting with the Tabqa Civil Council in the town of Tabqa, about 55 kilometres (35 miles) west of Raqa city, on June 29, 2017.  / AFP PHOTO / DELIL SOULEIMAN        (Photo credit should read DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Turkey’s scapegoating of US special envoy Brett McGurk over the military partnership between the United States and the Syrian Kurds grew crazier today, with one pro-government newspaper labeling him a murderer.

“US envoy murders 46,000 civilians in Iraq, Syria,” blared the front page of the conservative Yeni Safak. “The coalition forces, led by … McGurk … who has recently come to light with his anti-Turkish statements, slaughtered 46,000 civilians in operations in Iraq’s Homs and Syria’s Raqqa provinces.” The destruction of Mosul, the flattening of Raqqa, famine, lack of medicine … These and other calamities befalling Syria and Iraq are all apparently the doings of McGurk, the US envoy for the global coalition against the Islamic State (IS).

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