VIENNA, December 20. /TASS/. Member-states of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on Tuesday adopted a declaration condemning the assassination of the Russian Ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, the Russian Ambassador to the OSCE, Alexander Lukashevich told TASS.
At the Russian Initiative, the OSCE Permanent Council held a special meeting on Tuesday in the wake of the tragic incident in Ankara.
"We pursued the idea of a separate declaration regarding the terrorist attack at our ambassador in Turkey," Lukashevich said. "Today it acquired practical shape and we managed to coordinate it promptly enough. That’s a declaration of the 57 member-states on the brutal terrorist attack at our ambassador in Turkey."
The document contains "resolute condemnation of the terrorist devilment that resulted in the death of our outstanding diplomat, Andrei Karlov." "It also expressed condolences to the family and close friends of the late ambassador and reiterates solidarity with Russia and its government," Lukashevich said.
Along with it, he indicated that the declaration stood in line with a decision on stepping up the OSCE’s role in the struggle with international terrorism that was taken at a ministerial conference in Hamburg on December 9.
Lukashevich said OSCE member states have reaffirmed their readiness to prevent and counter attacks on diplomats and consular workers worldwide while adopting the declaration.
"A very important message is that Vienna was the city from where OSCE member states confirmed the principle of inviolability of diplomatic and consular employees," Russia’s OSCE envoy, Alexander Lukashevich, said. "The OSCE states confirmed readiness to take all measures needed to prevent all attacks on workers of diplomatic missions and consulates."
He added that "OSCE member states have once again reaffirmed their commitment to bring to justice all perpetrators of terrorist acts, as well as those who financed, planned or sponsored them."
An armed man whom the police identified later as Mevlut Mert Altintas, 22, a former police officer, opened indiscriminate fire on Monday in an arts gallery in Ankara where Ambassador Karlov was opening an exhibition of Turkish photographic works featuring Russia. He received a gunshot wound, of which he died at hospital later.
Turkish officials said the attacker was eliminated on the spot. Apart from the ambassador, he wounded three more people.