Turkish daily fires senior journalist over tweet blaming Erdogan over ISIL
A leading Turkish newspaper has sacked one of its most senior commentators over his tweet criticizing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s policies, which the journalist said, gave rise to the Takfiri ISIL terrorist group.
In a statement released on Thursday, the Milliyet daily said that Kadri Gursel had been fired because his remarks on his social media post were “incompatible” with the paper’s editorial policies.
In a tweet posted on Wednesday, Gursel accused Erdogan of being behind the rise of the ISIL, adding that it was shameful that world leaders were offering their condolences to him for a recent deadly bomb blast in the southern Turkish town of Suruc, reportedly claimed by the extremist terror group.
“It’s embarrassing that foreign leaders call the person who is the number one cause of the IS (ISIL) terror in Turkey to present their condolences for Suruc,” Gursel said.
The July 20 explosion in Suruc, located near the Syrian border, killed 32 people and injured more than 100 people.
The explosion targeted people from the Socialist Youth Associations Federation, also known as the SGDF, who had gathered at a cultural center before their journey to Kobani, also called Ayn al-Arab, to help in the restructuring of the war-torn Syrian town.
The anti-Erdogan tweet came as Turkey has been criticized for clamping down on journalists and sentencing them to long prison terms.
Ankara has also been widely accused of supporting the Takfiri ISIL militants operating in Syria as part of a broader Western plot for the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Many media reports have recently revealed Ankara’s role in providing support to the terror groups active in Syria.
Last month, center-left Turkish daily Cumhuriyet released a video implicating the country’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT) in assisting the notorious Takfiri group.
Erdogan said Cumhuriyet would pay a “heavy price” for publishing the video, prompting international media rights group Reporters Without Borders to slam the Turkish leader for threatening journalists.
On June 12, Turkish newspaper Today’s Zaman also revealed that Ankara allows ISIL terrorists to freely walk in the streets of the Akcakale border district in Sanliurfa.
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