Assassination in Ankara: Cop guns down Russian ambassador

December 20, 2016

Ankara, Dec 20: Russia’s Ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov was assassinated Monday night during the opening ceremony of a photo exhibition in Ankara when he took to the podium to make a speech.

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Turkey’s interior minister said the gunman, 22-year-old Mevlut Mert Altintas, who was killed, was part of Ankara’s anti-riot police.

The assailant was on duty as a security officer during rallies by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s mainstream HaberTurk news reported.

After shooting the ambassador, the gunman shouted: “Don’t forget Aleppo. Don’t forget Syria. Until our towns are safe, you won’t be able to enjoy safety. Whoever has a role in this cruelty will pay for it one by one.”

This marks the first assassination of an ambassador in Turkey. It comes a day before the planned visit of Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu to Moscow for talks on Syria with his Russian and Iranian counterparts.

Erdogan phoned his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to share information. “We have to know who gave the orders to the assassin,” Putin said. In a public statement, Erdogan condemned the attack and said it aimed to harm improved ties with Moscow.

Experts say the assassination puts Turkey in a difficult diplomatic position.

“It doesn’t look like a Daesh attack because the gunman evacuated the art gallery to shoot the ambassador,” Ahmet Han, an international relations professor from Istanbul Kadir Has University, told Arab News.

“This might be an attack carried out by an individual who is ideologically or emotionally vested in developments in Aleppo,” he said.

“He might be a member or sympathizer of an organization on the ground in Syria, or an isolated individual. Otherwise we have to think of a connection with a national intelligence agency.”

Han added: “Turkey wouldn’t be involved in such a crisis if it hadn’t been so exposed to regional dynamics as a party. It’s inevitable that comments on Turkey’s intelligence deficit will follow from the international community.”

However, he said if Ankara cooperated with Moscow, the assassination would not lead to a crisis similar to which occurred when Turkey shot down a Russian warplane in November 2015. “At this point, common sense and restraint should rule,” Han said.

Aykan Erdemir, a former Turkish MP and now senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank, said Moscow gained concessions from Ankara following the downing of the warplane before going forward with normalization.

“Putin could again leverage the attack to gain further concessions from Turkey,” Erdemir told Arab News.

“Turkish government officials argue that the attack targeted Turkish-Russian cooperation, and point the finger at the West. The assassination could bolster conspiracy theories at home and speed Turkey’s pivot toward Russia.”

Selim Sazak, a researcher at the Century Foundation, a New York-based think tank, said: “The assailant could be a Turkish nationalist gone rogue, a Gulenist (supporter of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of masterminding the July 15 coup attempt in Turkey), a Daesh subvert, or even a Eurasianist, for this plays right into the hands of those trying to bring Turkey and Russia closer.”

Mainstream Turkish media are reporting that the attacker being a Gulenist is the most likely option.

Sazak says this will impact US-Turkish relations more than it will Turkish-Russian ties. “Pro-government media are already spinning this as a US conspiracy, and trying to paint the cop as a Gulenist,” he told Arab News.

Sazak says diplomatically the game plan is fairly simple, at least publicly: “You express condolences, high-level authorities attend the funeral in Moscow, and Putin says a few things about how this is regrettable but thanks Turkish police and reiterates the solidarity of the Turkish and Russian peoples.”

However, Sazak says the only exit strategy for Ankara is to try to spin the assassination into anti-Western propaganda.

“As of today, Turkey’s Syria game is over,” Sazak said, adding that this puts Turkey in the worst bargaining position imaginable.

In a similar vein, the Russian Federation Council considers the assassination a grave failure of Turkish law-enforcement, Interfax reported.

However, other messages coming from Moscow suggest that Russia does not intend to turn the assassination into a major diplomatic crisis.

Frants Klintsevic, deputy chairman of the Russian Federation Council Defense and Security Committee, said the perpetrator wanted “to turn Turkey and Russia against each other.”

In a statement, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said: “Ambassador Karlov was a unique diplomat who earned the appreciation of all state cadres for his professional and personal competencies, as he carried out successful work at a very difficult time in Turkey.

“His memory will always be with us. We will not allow this attack to overshadow Turkish-Russian friendship.”

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News Network
March 14,2024

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The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) says at least five people, including a staff member, were killed and 22 others wounded after Israeli forces targeted a food distribution centre in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini in a statement on Wednesday said that the strike hit one of the very few remaining UNRWA distribution centers in the eastern part of Rafah.

“Today’s attack on one of the very few remaining UNRWA distribution centers in the Gaza Strip comes as food supplies are running out, hunger is widespread and, in some areas, turning into famine,” Lazzarini said.

“Every day, we share the coordinates of all our facilities across the Gaza Strip with parties to the conflict," he continued.

He said the attack was carried out even though "the Israeli Army received the coordinates including of this facility yesterday."

Lazzarini further urged the protection of the UN, its staff, and its premises and called for an independent investigation.

Israel acknowledged an airstrike on a food aid distribution center in southern Gaza, which it claimed targeted and killed a high-ranking member of Hamas. 

Meanwhile, the statement by the UNRWA head added that since October 7, at least 165 team members have been killed while in the line of duty and more than 400 people sheltering in UN buildings also lost their lives due to Israel's attacks.

More than 150 of the agency’s facilities, including schools and shelters, have been hit in the war, with some destroyed, and UNRWA staff have reportedly been mistreated and humiliated while in Israeli detention centers, according to the UNRWA.

Six aid seekers killed in Israeli attack

Separately, the health ministry in the Gaza Strip said six people were killed in the latest attack on Palestinians waiting for humanitarian aid at the Kuwait Roundabout in Gaza City.

The Wafa news agency said some 83 people who were wounded in the attack have been transferred to the al-Shifa Medical Complex in the city.

Over the past weeks, Israeli forces have increased their offensives on the Kuwait Roundabout, an area where large groups gather to wait for aid deliveries.

Israeli forces killed 11 people waiting for food aid at the roundabout on Monday night.

The Israeli military has restricted the delivery of humanitarian supplies to northern Gaza for weeks, and thousands of children are going without sufficient food and medication.

The prevention of aid convoys comes as humanitarian officials have already issued a dire warning, stating that unless a ceasefire is implemented and aid is significantly increased, the toll of malnutrition and disease is expected to rise, leading to an alarming loss of lives.

So far, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 31,272 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 73,024 others.

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News Network
March 25,2024

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The Israeli military has attacked desperate Palestinians lining up for humanitarian aid in Gaza City, killing at least 19 people and injuring 23 others in a new massacre against aid seekers. 

The Government Media Office in Gaza said in a statement that the carnage took place on Saturday near the al-Kuwait roundabout, southeast of Gaza City.

“The occupation army and tanks opened fire with machine guns at the hungry people who were waiting for bags of flour and aid in a remote place that did not pose a threat to the occupation,” the statement said.

Mahmud Basal, spokesman for the Civil Defense Department in Gaza, said there had been “heavy shooting at civilians” looking for food to help their families and children.

“There were very serious injuries, some of whom were injured by shrapnel. The reality is tragic, difficult, and challenging,” he added, saying the victims were taken to the nearby al-Ahli Arab hospital.

Speaking to Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV network, Alaa al-Khudary, a witness at the scene, said that Israeli forces shot at the crowd, leaving “many dead” and injuring others while they tried to get “a bite to eat” for their children.

However, the Israeli army claimed that the reports of its troops firing on a Gaza aid queue are “incorrect.”

In recent weeks, Israeli soldiers have conducted several deadly attacks on crowds of aid seekers in the besieged Gaza.

In mid-March the Israeli military opened fire on Palestinian civilians who had gathered in Gaza to obtain humanitarian aid, targeting them with gunfire from helicopters, tanks, and drones near the Kuwait roundabout on the outskirts of Gaza City, killing over 60 people and injuring 160 others.

In what is known as the “flour massacre”, the occupation forces killed 118 people and wounded 760 others as they opened fire on hundreds of Palestinians waiting for aid trucks in Gaza City’s al-Rashid Street on February 29.

Earlier this month, the Government Media Office in Gaza said that a total of 400 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on aid seekers since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal aggression against the Palestinian territory.

Israel waged its US-backed war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out a historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

So far, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 32,142 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 74,412 others.

Israel is intentionally starving the people in Gaza by blocking their access to food, a war crime under the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute.

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March 21,2024

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Israeli military siege, hunger, and diseases will soon become the main killer in Gaza, says commissioner- general of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Philippe Lazzarini, who heads the UNRWA for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, took to X on Wednesday to vent his concern for the growing hunger and spread of diseases as a result of the Israeli siege on the besieged strip.

He said starvation and illness may soon be the main killer in Gaza.

"This fabricated and catastrophic level of hunger can still be reversed by flooding Gaza with food and life-saving assistance," Lazzarini said.

"More than ever humanity requires political will,” the UNRWA chief added.

In a press release on March 19, UNRWA said that “famine is imminent in the Gaza Strip, especially for isolated populations in northern Gaza deprived of humanitarian aid.”

The statement noted that the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), in a latest food security outlook, concluded that up to 1.1 million people in Gaza are facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity.

“Nutrition screenings conducted in February by UNICEF and UNRWA show that rates of acute malnutrition among children in northern Gaza and Rafah have nearly doubled since January,” it said.

The Israeli regime has accused UNRWA staff of being involved in the October 7 attack by the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas against the occupied territories, prompting a number of its western allies to suspend funding for the UN agency.

On Wednesday, an agreement was reached by US congressional leaders and the White House on a massive funding bill will continue a ban on US funding for UNRWA until March 2025, Reuters reported.

Earlier this year the US, Canada, Australia, Britain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Finland, Estonia, Japan, Austria and Romania  decided to cut their funding to the UNRWA, considered a lifeline for the Palestinians in Gaza.

France had also announced that it does not plan a new payment to fund UNRWA in the first quarter of 2024.

Condemning the suspension of funding, Lazzarini had said, “It would be immensely irresponsible to sanction an agency and an entire community…, especially at a time of war, displacement and political crises in the region.”

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