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Murder of Russian ambassador to Turkey is shock, loss: Russian FM spokeswoman

Xinhua, December 20, 2016 Adjust font size:

The murder of Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov is a shock and loss for the whole Russia, Russian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on the Russian TV channel "Rossiya 1" Tuesday.

It is a shock and blow for Russia as Karlov worked for the improvement of Russia-Turkey relations and kept the world from another collapse, Zakharova said.

She also mentioned that earlier this month, Karlov prepared a program for a visiting Russian delegation which held talks with their Turkish counterparts in Turkey's Mediterranean town of Alanya. She noted that Karlov maximally filled up the program in order to take the bilateral relations out of the stalemate they were in.

The Russian diplomat was killed by a gunman at an art exhibition ceremony Monday in the Turkish capital of Ankara.

The Russian Foreign Ministry declared the attack a terrorist act. Russian President Vladimir Putin said it was designed to spoil Russian-Turkish ties.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, in Alanya on Dec. 1.

It was Lavrov's first working visit to Turkey after the normalization of Russian-Turkish relations, which had been strained after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane on Nov. 24, 2015. Endi