{"id":12719,"date":"2016-12-19T21:48:51","date_gmt":"2016-12-19T21:48:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=12719"},"modified":"2016-12-19T21:48:51","modified_gmt":"2016-12-19T21:48:51","slug":"breakingrussian-ambassador-to-turkey-is-assassinated-in-ankara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=12719","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING:Russian Ambassador to Turkey Is Assassinated in Ankara"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><code><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- www.deltanewsroom.com --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2163942495525027\" data-ad-slot=\"1411897411\" data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/code><\/p>\n<p><code><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=11873&amp;ad_type=59&amp;rl=180\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/code><\/p>\n<div class=\"story-body-supplemental\">\n<div class=\"story-body story-body-1\">\n<p id=\"story-continues-1\" class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"255\" data-total-count=\"255\">Russia\u2019s ambassador to Turkey was assassinated at an Ankara art exhibit on Monday evening by a lone Turkish gunman shouting \u201cGod is great!\u201d and \u201cdon\u2019t forget Aleppo, don\u2019t forget Syria!\u201d in what Russia called a terrorist attack.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"257\" data-total-count=\"512\">The gunman, described by Ankara\u2019s mayor as a policeman, also wounded at least three others in the assault on the envoy, Andrey G. Karlov, which was captured on Turkish video. Turkish officials said the assailant was killed by other officers in a shootout.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"235\" data-total-count=\"747\">The assassination, an embarrassing security failure in the Turkish capital, instantly vaulted relations between Turkey and Russia to a new level of crisis over the Syrian conflict on Turkey\u2019s southern doorstep, now in its sixth year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"344\" data-total-count=\"1091\">The longer-term implications for the Russia-Turkey relationship, which had been warming recently after plunging a year ago, were not immediately clear. But some analysts played down the notion that the assassination would lead to a new rupture, saying it could conversely bring the countries closer together in a shared fight against terrorism.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"story-continues-2\" class=\"story-interrupter\">\n<div id=\"FlexAd\" class=\"ad flex-ad nocontent robots-nocontent\">\n<div class=\"flex-ad-creative\">The assassination came after days of protests by Turks angry over Russia\u2019s support for Syria\u2019s government in the conflict and the Russian role in the killings and destruction in Aleppo, the northern Syrian city.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"story-body-supplemental\">\n<div class=\"story-body story-body-2\">\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"215\" data-total-count=\"1306\"><span class=\"caption-text\">Andrey G. Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, speaking at the gallery in Ankara on Monday, moments before he was shot. A man believed to be the gunman is behind him at left.<\/span><span class=\"credit\"><span class=\"visually-hidden\">Credit<\/span>Burhan Ozbilici\/Associated Press<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"227\" data-total-count=\"1533\">The Russian envoy was shot from behind and immediately fell to the floor while speaking at an exhibition of photographs, according to multiple accounts from the scene, the Contemporary Arts Center in the Cankaya area of Ankara.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"207\" data-total-count=\"1740\">The gunman, wearing a dark suit and tie, was seen in video footage of the assault waving a pistol and shouting in Arabic: \u201cGod is great! Those who pledged allegiance to Muhammad for jihad. God is great!\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"story-continues-4\" class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"147\" data-total-count=\"1887\">Then he switched to Turkish and shouted: \u201cDon\u2019t forget Aleppo, don\u2019t forget Syria! Step back! Step back! Only death can take me from here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"130\" data-total-count=\"2017\">Turkish officials said the gunman was killed after a shootout with Turkish Special Forces. His identity was not immediately known.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"261\" data-total-count=\"2278\">Russia\u2019s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, told the Rossiya 24 news channel that Mr. Karlov had died of his wounds in what she described as a terrorist attack. Turkey\u2019s Interior Ministry said the ambassador had died at Guven Hospital in Ankara.<\/p>\n<div class=\"story-body-supplemental\">\n<div class=\"story-body story-body-3\">\n<p id=\"story-continues-6\" class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"256\" data-total-count=\"2534\">Russian news agencies said the ambassador\u2019s wife fainted and was hospitalized after learning of her husband\u2019s death. They also said Russian tourists in Turkey had been advised against leaving their hotel rooms or visiting public places as a precaution.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"300\" data-total-count=\"2834\">Russia\u2019s Tass news agency initially quoted witnesses of the attack as saying that there had been an \u201cassassination attempt\u201d against Mr. Karlov, and that he had been shot from behind while finishing his opening remarks at the opening of the exhibition, called \u201cRussia Through Turks\u2019 Eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"242\" data-total-count=\"3076\">Mr. Karlov, who started his career as a diplomat in 1976, worked extensively in North Korea over two decades, before moving to the region in 2007, according to a biography on the Russian Embassy\u2019s website. He became ambassador in July 2013.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"203\" data-total-count=\"3279\">The attack was a rare instance of an assassination of a Russian envoy. Historians said it might have been the first since Pyotr Voykov, a Soviet ambassador to Poland, was shot to death in Warsaw in 1927.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"298\" data-total-count=\"3577\">For many Russians, the assassination is likely to recall the 19th-century killing in Tehran of Aleksandr Griboyedov, a poet and diplomat who died after a mob stormed the Russian Embassy. That episode is remembered as the most severe insult to Russia\u2019s diplomatic corps in the country\u2019s history. <span class=\"caption-text\">The gunman after shooting the Russian ambassador.<\/span><span class=\"credit\"><span class=\"visually-hidden\">Credit<\/span>Burhan Ozbilici\/Associated Press<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"174\" data-total-count=\"3751\">More recently, the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, now allied with Russia in Syria, kidnapped four Soviet diplomats in 1985, killing one and releasing three a month later.<\/p>\n<p id=\"story-continues-7\" class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"346\" data-total-count=\"4097\">The United States, which has tangled bitterly with Russia over the Syrian conflict, quickly condemned the assassination in Ankara. In a statement, Secretary of State John Kerry called it a \u201cdespicable attack, which was also an assault on the right of all diplomats to safely and securely advance and represent their nations around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"274\" data-total-count=\"4371\">The assassination also illustrated the long reach of the Syrian war. It has destabilized Europe with hundreds of thousands of refugees, spawned terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels, and led to the rise of the Islamic State, which controls territory across Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"395\" data-total-count=\"4766\">When the war began, Turkey was rising and confident, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, then its prime minister, began supporting rebels seeking the ouster of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. Entirely preoccupied with bringing Mr. Assad down, Turkey opened its borders to weapons and fighters flowing to the rebels, turning a blind eye, for a time, when the opposition turned increasingly Islamist.<\/p>\n<p class=\"visually-hidden skip-to-text-link\" data-para-count=\"241\" data-total-count=\"5007\">As the war ground on, the consequences for Turkey were profound. It was overwhelmed with refugees \u2014 more than three million now reside in the country \u2014 and the rise of the Islamic State led to terrorist attacks within Turkey\u2019s borders. <span class=\"caption-text\">The Turkish police secured the area outside the art gallery after the attack.<\/span> <span class=\"credit\"><span class=\"visually-hidden\">Credit<\/span>Erhan Ortac\/Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- www.deltanewsroom.com --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2163942495525027\" data-ad-slot=\"1411897411\" data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"story-body-supplemental\">\n<div class=\"story-body story-body-4\">\n<p id=\"story-continues-9\" class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"367\" data-total-count=\"5374\">In the fall of 2015, with Mr. Assad confronting multiple challenges at home, Russia entered the conflict in support of the Syrian government, reinforcing Mr. Assad at a weak moment and dealing a blow to Turkey\u2019s ambitions in Syria. Relations between Turkey and Russia reached a low point in November 2015 after Turkey shot down a Russian jet near the Syrian border.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"473\" data-total-count=\"5847\">But earlier this year, in an effort to restore relations, Mr. Erdogan, now the president, met with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in St. Petersburg, and ever since the two countries have largely put aside their differences on Syria and focused on improving economic ties. In August, when Turkey\u2019s military went into Syria to push the Islamic State out of the border town of Jarabulus, the move was widely seen as having been made with the tacit approval of Russia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"223\" data-total-count=\"6070\">For Turkey the episode resonated in the Turkish collective memory: Turkey lost many diplomats in the 20th century to Armenian militants in a campaign of assassination in revenge for the Armenian genocide during World War I.<\/p>\n<p id=\"story-continues-10\" class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"391\" data-total-count=\"6461\">\u201cTurkey is very aware of the size of this failure, and I think the government will make every effort to investigate this fully,\u201d Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat who is the chairman of the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies, an Istanbul research organization, said of the Russian diplomat\u2019s assassination. \u201cI don\u2019t expect any crisis between Turkey and Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"318\" data-total-count=\"6779\">Since the Turkish military incursion into Syria in August, Mr. Erdogan\u2019s criticism of Russia over Syria had been muted. But Mr. Erdogan faced a dilemma: Even as he was warming to Russia, he faced a Turkish public, not to mention the Syrian refugees within Turkey, angry over Russia\u2019s role in the bombing of Aleppo.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"378\" data-total-count=\"7157\">On Monday evening in Istanbul, just after the assassination, a group of protesters gathered outside the Russian consulate on Istiklal Avenue, the city\u2019s largest pedestrian street. The gathering was more street theater than protest, with two men lying on the street, shrouded in bloody sheets and the Syrian flag, and surrounded by candles, to represent the killings in Aleppo.<button class=\"button comments-button theme-speech-bubble-large\" data-skip-to-para-id=\"\"><\/button><\/p>\n<p>Mohammed al-Shibli, a Syrian activist who participated, said, \u201cI felt extreme happiness when I heard the news\u201d of the assassination.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"281\" data-total-count=\"7574\">He continued: \u201cThis is the first step in getting justice for the Syrian people. The ambassador is not innocent. He represents the foreign policy of his murderous state and thus he is a murderer, as well. Now we are waiting for revenge against everyone who shed blood in Syria.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>www.http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/<a href=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Turrkey.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-12720\" src=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Turrkey-220x300.jpg\" alt=\"turrkey\" width=\"220\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Turrkey-220x300.jpg 220w, http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Turrkey.jpg 427w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 220px) 100vw, 220px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><code><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- www.deltanewsroom.com --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2163942495525027\" data-ad-slot=\"1411897411\" data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/code><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=11873&amp;ad_type=59&amp;rl=180\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/market.jumia.com.ng\/men-shoes\/?utm_source=pap&amp;utm_medium=aff&amp;utm_campaign=0bed9dec&amp;a_aid=Omafume&amp;a_bid=0bed9dec\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" title=\"\" src=\"\/\/kaymu.postaffiliatepro.com\/accounts\/default1\/a72f75b38\/0bed9dec.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"622\" height=\"267\" \/><\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 0;\" src=\"http:\/\/kaymu.postaffiliatepro.com\/scripts\/a72f75i38?a_aid=Omafume&amp;a_bid=0bed9dec\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Russia\u2019s ambassador to Turkey was assassinated at an Ankara art exhibit on Monday evening by a lone Turkish gunman shouting \u201cGod is great!\u201d and \u201cdon\u2019t forget Aleppo, don\u2019t forget Syria!\u201d in what Russia called a terrorist attack. The gunman, described by Ankara\u2019s mayor as a policeman, also wounded at least three others in the assault [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":12720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[23],"tags":[3371,3372,2371],"class_list":["post-12719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news","tag-andrey-g-karlov","tag-russian","tag-turkey"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Turrkey.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-3j9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12719"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12721,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12719\/revisions\/12721"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}