After the downing of Russian “Su-24” aircraft, the Russia-Turkey relations were just being regulated when today, in Turkey, a few hours ago, Russia’s ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov was murdered during the opening of an exhibition. Aravot.am asked Turkologist Gevorg Petrosyan about the impact of the incident on the Russian-Turkish relations. According to Mr. Petrosyan, even though a few hours have passed after the incident, but officials from Turkey and Russia have already managed to issue statements in which they hurried to note that the incident should not affect the relations between Moscow and Ankara.
“On December 20, a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Russia, Turkey and Iran is expected in Moscow which according to the Turkish media is decided not to postpone. Thus, the Russian side does not rush to make hasty decisions and is trying to get a better overall picture and analyze the situation in detail. The information that we currently have at hand allows us to assert that the incident will not have a deep and serious impact on Russian-Turkish relations.”
Gevorg Petrosyan opines that we can accept the responses in Russia and Turkey also as a basis for this assertion, “I repeat that it is too early to talk about specific consequences as it is necessary to find out who backs up this assault, for what purpose and how the assassination was carried out. The fact that Russia’s Foreign and Plenipotentiary Ambassador to Turkey is murdered in the capital of Turkey is, first of all, a major issue for Turkey. Before passing to other questions, I must highlight that this is the next major failure and omission of the Turkish security system. Currently, Turkey’s steps and willingness to investigate the incident are important, the outcome of which will enable to talk about its impact on the Russian-Turkish relations.”
Lusine BUDAGHYAN
