Lawmaker assumes radical Islamists might be behind assassination of Russian ambassador

MOSCOW, December 20. /TASS/. The assassination of the Russian Ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, was engineered by the radical Islamic groupings banned in Russia, Frantz Klintsevich, the chairman of the committee for defense and security in the upper house of Russian parliament told reporters on Monday.

An armed man whom the police identified later as a 22-year-old former police officer opened indiscriminate fire on Monday in an art gallery in Ankara where Ambassador Karlov was opening a photo exhibition. According to Maria Zakharova, Karlov was shot. The diplomat was taken to the hospital, but later died of sustained wounds.

Turkish officials said the attacker was eliminated. Apart from the ambassador, he wounded three more people but none of them were Russian citizens.

"I don’t have any doubts it’s the radical Islamists who acted as the killer’s puppeteers and it doesn’t mean whether they are affiliated with the Islamic State or Jabhat al-Nusra," Klintsevich said. "The goal is clear and it’s revenge on our country for Syria combined with an attempt for trigger a head-on collision between Russia and Turkey."

"Assassination of an ambassador is a blatant, terrible situation that doesn’t have precedents in contemporary history," he said.

"Quite naturally, we have questions to the Turkish side as well, as it failed to ensure security of a foreign diplomat of this high rank," Klintsevich said. "All the more so that this assassination took place after a chain of terrorist acts, and that’s why the appropriate Turkish agencies were obliged to take special precautionary steps."

"I don’t think there’s any need to stress an apparent growth of the terrorist threat because this is clear as daylight," he said. "Once again, the world community must take coordinated actions."

Russia should secure its diplomatic missions abroad 

Russia should strengthen security at its diplomatic missions in Turkey and neighboring countries, Vladimir Dzhabarov, first deputy chairman of the Russian Federation Council’s International Affairs Committee, said on Tuesday following the ambassador's murder.

"The responsibility for the death of Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov is on Turkey which did not ensure security at such an event, knowing that the country is located near the fronline," Dzhabarov said.

According to the lawmaker, it was "clear that after the offensive in Aleppo, such actions were possible from terrorists." "Militants usually resort to primitive terror when they feel powerless," he noted.

"I think that after this, security should be stepped up at all Russian diplomatic missions in Turkey and other countries in the close proximity to Syria," he said.

Dzhabarov also expressed deepest condolences to the family and friends of Andrei Karlov. He said the ambassador was "an amazing diplomat."