Parliament remembers slain Russian envoy Karlov

Turkish Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday commemorated former Russian envoy Andrei Karlov, who was assassinated in Ankara in November 2016.

The members of the committee, along with the Chairman Volkan Bozkır, paid a visit to the Russian embassy in Ankara and placed a wreath on the memorial of the former Russian envoy.

Speaking at the commemoration ceremony, Russia's ambassador to Ankara Aleksei Erkhov thanked committee members, saying that their efforts to remember the former envoy are welcomed.

Erkhov said that Turkish officials took some steps to preserve the memory of the envoy, like renaming the street the Russian embassy is located on. The ambassador also highlighted that the relations between the countries reached a high point due to efforts from both presidents.

Underlining that the motive behind the unfortunate incident was foiled, Bozkır said the two countries have managed to overcome the fallout. He added that Karlov was a valuable friend and envoy.Karlov was assassinated in November 2016 by Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş, an off-duty police officer with links to the ubiquitous terrorist group which also perpetrated the July 15 coup attempt two years ago.

The envoy was speaking at the opening of a Russian-themed exhibition at an art gallery in Çankaya, Ankara when he was shot dead by Altıntaş, who was killed in a subsequent shootout with police inside the gallery.

The assassination took place at a time when strained Turkish and Russian relations were being restored and an investigation found that Altıntaş was linked to the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), which tried to portray the murder as the work of an extremist group.

Since the murder, Ankara and Moscow have gradually made progress in rebuilding ties that were derailed by the 2015 downing of a Russian fighter jet over the Syrian border by the Turkish military.

Prosecutors say Altıntaş personally knew Fetullah Gülen, the U.S.-based leader of the terrorist group. Five people, including three police officers, were subsequently arrested in a probe.