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Conflict in Syria

Turkish TV: Russia unaware man wanted on terror charges in Turkey attended Sochi forum

Earlier, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry asked Russia to provide explanations on Mihrac Ural’s participation in the forum

© Sergey Bobylev/TASS

ANKARA, February 1. /TASS/. Russia was totally unaware of the presence of an individual wanted by Ankara as a terrorist ringleader at the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Sochi earlier this week, Haber Turk TV channel said quoting a source at the Turkish Foreign Ministry.

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"The Russians said they didn’t know anything about Mihrac Ural’s presence at the congress," the source said.

On Tuesday, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry asked Russia to provide explanations on Mihrac Ural’s participation in the forum. It said that this individual was a leader of a terror group known as Turkiye Halk Kurtulus Partisi-Cephesi [People’s Liberation Party-Front of Turkey] and he was behind a deadly attack in the southern province of Hatay in 2013 killing 52 persons there.

Participants in the Congress that had assembled in Sochi on Tuesday endorsed a 12-item statement spelling out their positions on their country’s future.

The document stipulates that Syria should maintain its sovereignty and territorial integrity and that the Syrian people hold the prerogative to determine the country’s future through elections.

The Syrians also asked the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres to help them organize the constitutional commission, the mandate of which will be specified at the ongoing Pan-Syrian talks in Geneva.

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Syrian conflict

Israeli-Palestinian conflict

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West bends sanctions rules when it suits them — Kremlin

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Russian defense chief points to West’s double standards on right to self-defense

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Russian diplomat accuses US of coordinating Ukraine’s terrorist attacks

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