Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan received enthusiastic applause while denouncing Syria’s Bashar al-Assad at a government communications forum in the United Arab Emirates. Erdogan called Assad a “mute devil” for allowing crimes against his own people. “We will not remain silent in the face of the cruel dictator, the mute devil, who mercilessly carried out massacres against his own people, but who has remained silent and unresponsive toward those who have occupied his own territories for decades,” he said. The speech comes only hours before new U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s first official trip overseas
