Anti-Americanism in Turkey plumbed new lows today as a Turkish civic association petitioned a court in the western port city of Izmir to issue an arrest warrant for prominent American diplomat Brett McGurk.

A heretofore unknown outfit called "The Platform for Civilian Struggle against the Fethullah Terrorist Organization" was apparently established to work against Fethullah Gulen, the Pennsylvania-based Sunni preacher who is accused of engineering last year’s coup attempt, and his purported terror network known as FETO. It claimed that Brett McGurk, the presidential envoy to the global anti-Islamic State coalition, had sought to “overturn Turkey’s constitutional order” in concert with “terrorists.” These were named as the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is fighting the Turkish army for Kurdish self-rule, and its Syrian allies, the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the latter’s political arm, the Democratic Unity Party.

The move followed calls this week by a pro-government columnist for McGurk’s detention. Prosecutors have already issued warrants for the arrests of two other American citizens: prominent academic Henri J. Barkey and long retired CIA official Graham Fuller on the grounds that the pair had helped mastermind the botched putsch. The pro-government media has dutifully fabricated mind-bending reports to substantiate the allegations, which both men stoutly deny.

Fuller said in a statement, “I retired from the CIA exactly 30 years ago. I have not set foot in Turkey in five years … I am only marginally swept up among many Turks in the ongoing wave of arrests, persecutions and cashiering of tens of thousands of Turks … all perceived as enemies of [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan’s state.”