Ex-Trump aid says Obama's people continue to make Mideast policy

WASHINGTON D.C - Sebastian Gorka, who served as the Deputy Assistant for President Donald Trump shortly after he assumed office in January until late August, has revealed the existence of alleged "tension" between the Trump White House and the Department of State.

“There is a difference, there is tension between what the President [or] what the White House wants to achieve, and what the State Department wishes to achieve,” said Mr. Gorka in an interview with Rudaw on the sideline of a Hudson Institute conference in Washington DC on countering extremism. 

“A lot of policies and statements from the State Department are made by legacy individuals, people who come from the Obama Administration,” added Mr. Gorka, pointing specifically to Brett McGurk, the US envoy appointed by Obama to be in charge of the office for the global coalition to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Gorka’s revelation appears to prove the widely-shared belief among Iraqi Kurds that McGurk played a critical role in designing the hostile US policy toward the independence referendum held earlier in September. 

Though more than 92% of the Kurds voted for independence, the Kurdistan government froze the results on Tuesday after its forces came under a bloody military assault from Iraq’s central government and Iran-backed Shiite militias. 

Kurdistan hopes that Baghdad will put an end to the hostilities and start negotiations over their numerous oil and land-related issues instead.