(RT) — The US roundly denied accusations of being involved in the killing of Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov, as Ankara links the chilling attack to Fethullah Gulen, a self-exiled Turkish cleric residing in Pennsylvania with Washington’s approval.
“It’s a ludicrous claim, absolutely false, there’s no basis of truth in it whatsoever,” US State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters during a daily press briefing on Tuesday.
Just hours after Ambassador Karlov was shot dead in Ankara, top Turkish officials claimed the trail of the shocking attack leads to the US.
“Any notion that the United States was in any way supportive of this or behind this or even indirectly involved is absolutely ridiculous,” Kirby added.
During a telephone conversation on Tuesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told US Secretary of State John Kerry that “both Turkey and Russia know the Gulenist Terror Cult (FETO) was behind Russian envoy Karlov’s assassination,” according to Daily Sabah.
Fethullah Gulen, the 74-year-old cleric, was a popular preacher and former imam before starting his own movement. He was a staunch ally of Erdogan when the Turkish leader was rising to power, but the two fell out and have become bitter rivals.
Ankara claims that Gulen created a “parallel state” in Turkey in the form of a network of supporters among Turkish officials, and accuses him of masterminding the failed military coup in July.
Commenting on the issue, Kirby said that Secretary Kerry “did raise his concerns about some of the rhetoric coming out of Turkey with respect to American involvement / support, tacit or otherwise, for this unspeakable assassination yesterday because of the presence of Mr. Gulen here in the United States.”
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