Turkey blames Gruevski's move for Russian ambassador's murder

Turkey pressed charges against 28 people in connection with the December 2016 assassination of the Russian ambassador to Ankara, specifying Islamic cleric Fetullah Gylenn as the top suspect in the event, Turkish state agency Anadolu reported.

Andrei Karlov was shot dead by a policeman who was not in office at the moment of the attack, while the ambassador was giving a speech at the opening of an exhibition in Ankara.

As the armed person opened fire, he shouted “ (God is great) and,<x2... remember Alepon! ” apparently referring to Russia's involvement in Syria. He was shot dead by police at the scene.

President Tayip Erdogan has said that Gylen's movement stands behind the assassination -- an accusation the clergyman has denied. Erdogan also blames the cleric's network as organising a military stamp in July 2016. Gylene, who has been living in self-declared exile in the United States since 1999, has condemned the coup and denied any involvement. Authorities accused Fetullah Gylenin and the other 27 persons of deliberately trying to “overlap constitutional order, being members of a terrorist organisation, as well as for alleged murder”, the Anadolu agency reported.

Prosecutors said that through the assassination, Gullen's organisation was trying to undermine relations between Turkey and Russia. But as the Russian ambassador's assassination took place, ties between the two countries were tense because Turkey had crashed a Russian war plane over Syria a year earlier. After the assassination, ties between Ankara and Moscow have steadily improved. /