ANKARA, Turkey: Turkey’s president on Wednesday implicated a U.S.-based Muslim cleric in the killing of Russia’s envoy to Turkey, saying the policeman who carried out the attack was a member of his “terror organization.”
Ambassador Andrei Karlov was killed Monday evening by a gunman in front of stunned onlookers at a photo exhibition in Ankara. The assassin, Mevlut Mert Altintas of Ankara’s riot police squad, was killed in a police operation.
“He [Altintas] was a member of the FETO terrorist organization. There is no point in hiding this,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said during a joint news conference with his visiting Albanian counterpart. “From the places he was raised to his connections — that’s what they point at.”
Turkey has accused Fethullah Gulen — a former ally who has turned into Erdogan’s top foe — of trying to destabilize Turkey and says his movement is behind a failed military coup in July aimed at toppling the Turkish leader. Gulen, 75, who lives in Saylorsburg, Pa., has denied any involvement in the coup. His movement also condemned “in the strongest terms” the assassination.
The government however, has labeled the movement “the FETO terror organization” and has cracked down on Gulen’s followers, arresting tens of thousands of people for their alleged link to the coup and purging more than 100,000 suspected supporters from government jobs.
Turkey is also pressing the United States to extradite Gulen so he may be prosecuted for the coup attempt and other alleged crimes.
Erdogan told reporters that Turkey’s intelligence agency was also looking into Altintas’ possible foreign connections, saying there were “certain clues” indicating overseas links. He did not elaborate.
Turkey has been rife with speculation about Altintas’ motive and possible links to Gulen, but Erdogan’s statement was the first time a senior official openly blamed the killing on the movement.
On Tuesday evening, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu spoke with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry by phone and provided information on the assailant, according to an official in his ministry. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government rules, said Cavusoglu also told Kerry that both Turkey and Russia “know” that Gulen’s movement was behind the attack.
During the phone call, Kerry raised concerns about “some of the rhetoric coming out of Turkey with respect to American involvement or support, tacit or otherwise, for this unspeakable assassination yesterday because of the presence of Mr. Gulen here in the United States,” Kerry’s spokesman John Kirby said.
“It’s a ludicrous claim, absolutely false,” Kirby said. “We need to let the investigators do their job and we need to let the facts and the evidence take them where it is before we jump to conclusions.”
Russia flew a team of 18 investigators and foreign ministry officials to Turkey to participate in the investigation.