Off the wire
• EAC to spent 27 mln USD to improve safety on Lake Victoria  • AU probes death of six civilians in Somalia  • Top news items in major Zambian media outlets  • Two accomplices of Dhaka cafe masterminds arrested  • Top news items in major Kenyan media outlets  • Top news items in major S. African media outlets  • Top news items in major Nigerian media outlets  • Arab League welcomes UN resolution on Aleppo  • China cracks 93,000 telecom fraud cases in first 11 months  • Roundup: Int'l community condemns assassination of Russian ambassador to Turkey  
You are here: 　 Home

Russia sends task force to Turkey to probe ambassador's murder

Xinhua, December 20, 2016 Adjust font size:

Russia has sent a task force comprising 18 members from its special services, the Investigative Committee and the Foreign Ministry, to Turkey to probe the murder of the country's ambassador, the Kremlin said Tuesday.

"The group will operate in Turkey to investigate the murder of ambassador Andrei Karlov. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reached an agreement over the matter during a telephone conversation," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Karlov was killed by a gunman at an art exhibition on Monday in the Turkish capital of Ankara.

Putin described the murder as "a provocation aimed at derailing the normalization of Russian-Turkish relations and the peace process in Syria."

The incident came ahead of a meeting between the top diplomats of Russia, Turkey and Iran on the Syrian crisis, which is scheduled for Tuesday in Moscow. Endi