ArmInfo.The assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey will not hinder the trends towards common points in the Moscow-Ankara relations regarding the Syrian conflict settlement, Prof. Ruben Safrastyan, Director of the Oriental Studies Institute of the Armenian National Academy of Sciences, has told ArmInfo.
To note, Russia's Ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov was shot dead at an art gallery in the Turkish capital on Monday. The gunman was off-duty policeman Mevlut Mert Altintas, 22, who opened fire at an art gallery in Ankara as Andrei Karlov was making a speech. Russia has described this as a terrorist act.
"The diplomat's assassination was certainly aimed at disrupting the joint efforts of Russia, Iran and Turkey towards peace in Syria, particularly, in the context of the Russia-Turkey talks scheduled for December 20 in Moscow. It is early to speak of the authors of the terrorist attack, however, it is already clear that it will have a negative effect on the talks on Syria.
Nevertheless, the expert thinks the assassination of the diplomat will not result in a serious crisis between Russia and Turkey and one should expect no such steps as closure of the Russian embassy in Ankara, because at the moment Moscow is strongly interested in deepening relations with Ankara, even amid the rather significant discrepancies.