Two NATO allies accusing each other of helping terrorists

Turkey and the U.S., Ankara's biggest ally in the Western defense organization NATO, are embroiled in a new row over the Syrian civil war and are publically accusing each other of helping terrorists.

The row started when Brett McGurk, U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoy to the Global Coalition to Counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), or DAESH, accused Turkey of assisting al-Qaeda in Syria at a conference in the Washington-based Middle East Institute on July 29.

McGurk said the following:

* "The region of Idlib [a northwestern Syrian town near the Turkish border] became the biggest safe have for al-Qaeda since the Sept. 11 attacks. This is a very serious problem and it has continued for some time … How and why it is possible that the deputy of Ayman al-Zawahiri [the leader of al-Qaeda] can go to Idlib? Why is this happening? How can they reach there?"

* "The approach by some of our partners to send tens of thousands and tons of weapons there, and looking the other way while foreign fighters go into Syria may not be the best approach. Al-Qaeda has taken full advantage and Idlib is now a huge problem." 

* "Right now, there is a safe haven for al-Qaeda just next to the Turkish border. So of course we are going to discuss this subject with the Turks. In some other areas the borders have been sealed and nobody has been able to cross, and we need to think of doing the same thing in Idlib."

Before McGurk got to discuss the issue with Turkish officials, Foreign Ministry Deputy Undersecretary Sedat Önal apparently phoned him on July 30. In the conversation Önal conveyed Turkey's unease and asked the U.S. envoy to "correct" his statements "if he was not aiming for any provocation." Foreign Ministry...