ISTANBUL — Turkey’s foreign minister on Thursday called on the Trump administration to replace its envoy to the anti-Islamic State coalition — the latest sign of Turkish frustration with the U.S. war strategy in Syria amid mounting tensions between the two NATO allies.
Turkey has forcefully protested the Trump administration’s decision to arm a Syrian Kurdish force for an assault on the Islamic State-held city of Raqqa. Turkey regards the force as an arm of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which Ankara and Washington have both listed as a terrorist group.
In an interview with Turkish broadcaster NTV, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu accused U.S. envoy Brett McGurk of “providing support” for the PKK and the Syrian Kurdish force, known as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG. “It would be beneficial for this person to change,” Cavusoglu said, referring to McGurk, adding that Turkey “would not meddle in the domestic issues of another country.”
The unusually pointed Turkish attack on an American official came days after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made a trip to Washington that was dominated by issues dividing the two countries and that delivered mixed dividends, at best, for the Turkish leader.
ISTANBUL — Turkey’s foreign minister on Thursday called on the Trump administration to replace its envoy to the anti-Islamic State coalition — the latest sign of Turkish frustration with the U.S. war strategy in Syria amid mounting tensions between the two NATO allies.
Turkey has forcefully protested the Trump administration’s decision to arm a Syrian Kurdish force for an assault on the Islamic State-held city of Raqqa. Turkey regards the force as an arm of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which Ankara and Washington have both listed as a terrorist group.
In an interview with Turkish broadcaster NTV, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu accused U.S. envoy Brett McGurk of “providing support” for the PKK and the Syrian Kurdish force, known as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG. “It would be beneficial for this person to change,” Cavusoglu said, referring to McGurk, adding that Turkey “would not meddle in the domestic issues of another country.”
The unusually pointed Turkish attack on an American official came days after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made a trip to Washington that was dominated by issues dividing the two countries and that delivered mixed dividends, at best, for the Turkish leader.
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