Following a pledge made by Hillary Clinton to support Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan harshly criticized the US presidential hopeful for promising to arm the Kurds.
“They say they will continue to arm the Democratic Union Party [PYD] and People’s Protection Units [YPG]; they say this in the US election campaign. Shame on you! Shame on you!” Erdoğan said at a rally in the Central Anatolian province of Konya. He had earlier labeled Clinton’s remarks during the latest presidential debate “the result of political experience.”
Talking about a possible military operation in the Iraqi city of Mosul by coalition forces, Erdoğan expressed determination to participate in the undertaking. “If the coalition forces do not want Turkey, we have plans B and C,” he stated.
Erdoğan also criticized political analyst Michael Rubin from the American Enterprise Institute, who wrote last week that a third coup is likely in the days to come. However, Erdoğan believes Rubin called the corruption investigations of Dec 17-25, 2013 the first coup. “A snob who does not know his place writes certain things in his column,” Erdoğan said in an effort to belittle Rubin.
New measures are ahead against Gülen movement
Erdoğan also hinted that “new measures” against the Gülen movement are in the offing, in a relentless witch-hunt that intensified after an attempted coup on July 15. He argued that because only a few people among the Gülen movement truly repented, they will implement new measures. “More cleansing, more dismissals are required,” he openly stated as Turkey has been undertaking the largest purge in its history, without due process.
Erdoğan calls the Gülen movement “FETÖ,” an acronym that his government coined to label the peaceful movement as a terrorist organization in the absence of any evidence to that effect.