Merhaba!

İlk olarak sizinle geçen yıl ülkemizde öldürülen bir diplomatın kısa biyografisini paylaşacağım.   

Kendisinden bahsedeceğim diplomat, Rusya'nın Ankara eski Büyükelçisi Andrei Karlov.

Hepinizin hatırlayacağı üzere Andrei Karlov Aralık 2016'da Ankara'da bir sergiyi gezerken öldürülmüştü. Karlov'un ölümü sıradan bir ölüm değildi. 

Amerika-Rusya ilişkisini ve Türkiye'nin bu ilişkideki konumunu özetlemek için sadece Andrei Karlov'un ölümü hakkında düşünmek yeterli olacaktır diye düşünüyorum.

Hi! 

First, I will share with you a short biography of a diplomat who has been killed in Turkey last year. 

The diplomat I will talk about is former Russian Ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov. As you all may remember, Andrei Karlov was shot dead in December 2016 in Ankara while he was seeing an exhibition. His death was not an ordinary one.

In my opinion, it will be enough to think about Mr. Karlov's death per se to cover the relation between the USA and Russia and Turkey's position in this relation.

Here is the piece...

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Former Russian Ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov

Andrei Karlov was a Russian diplomat who worked as the Russian Ambassador to Turkey and earlier as the Russian Ambassador to North Korea.

Mr. Karlov was born in Moscow on February 4 1954. He studied International Relations at Moscow State University, graduating in 1976. At the same year he joined the diplomatic service.

He worked as Russia’s ambassador to Pyongyang between 2001-2006. In 2013, he started serving as the ambassador to Turkey in Ankara.

On 19 December 2016, Russian Ambassador Karlov was killed by a 22-year-old off-duty police officer Mevlut Mert Altintas.

Mr. Karlov was delivering a speech at an art exhibition in Ankara when he was shot dead by Altintas who at the time shouted ‘Don’t forget Aleppo, don’t forget Syria!’

Tensions had been raised between Turkey and Russia after a Turkish Air Force F-16 fighter jet shot down a Russian aircraft near the Turkey-Syria border on November 24 2015. According to Turkey, action had been taken because it violated the border after being warned to change its heading. While Russian Defence Ministry denied that the aircraft had ever left Syrian airspace. Russian President Vladimir Putin said: “We got stabbed in the back.” And added that the US knew the flight path of the jet and should have informed Turkey.

After the incident, foreign ministers of Turkey and Russia spoke and stated that they would not initiate a war as a result of the incident. However, Russia said that it will re-evaluate its relations with Turkey and immediately deployed S-400 anti-aircraft missiles off to Syrian coast, Latakia. In about nine months, the two parties met in St. Petersburg and announced that they were restoring their relationship to the levels that existed before the downing of the Russian warplane.

One could almost say it’s too suspicious that Russian Ambassador Mr. Karlov’s death happened right after Turkey and Russia decided to restore their relationship. It had been about four months since the two parties met and announced their expectation to have the same relations as they did in the past.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that: “The crime that was committed is without doubt a provocation aimed at disrupting the normalisation of Russian-Turkish relations and disrupting the peace process in Syria that is being actively advanced by Russia, Turkey and Iran.” 

The murderer Altuntas is believed to be a member of the FETO terror organization that attempted a coup in Turkey at the night of July 15th 2016 and whose mastermind is still in exile in the US.

Mr. Karlov was 62 at the time of his death. On November 24th 2017, a monument was built in honour of Mr. Karlov in the Russian Embassy in Ankara.

He left many questions left to be answered and a scenario analysis to be solved behind.