“We feel for the victims of the terrorist attack,” Russian president says
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday expressed his condolences to the Turkish people following deadly suicide attacks and gunfire on Istanbul's main Ataturk Airport that killed 41 people, the Kremlin said.
“We feel for the victims of the terrorist attack," Russian Sputnik news quoted Putin as saying.
Europe's third largest airport and Turkey's main airport were devastated Tuesday evening when at least four Daesh terrorists blew themselves up in the arrival area, departure area and parking lot of the airport's international terminal at about 10 pm local time.
At least 41 people, including ten foreign nationals, have been killed and more than 230 others injured in the deadly attack.
Meanwhile, Russian lawmakers expressed their solidarity with the Turkish people.
The Russian Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman said the attack was aimed at disrupting Turkey's attempts to mend relations with Russia and Israel.
"The terrorist attack was directed against the attempts of the Turkish authorities to improve relations with Russia and Israel," Konstantin Kosachev, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian parliament's upper house, said on his official Facebook account on Wednesday.
“Turkey, as it seems to me, is being warned against participation in the single anti-terrorist front that is being created first and foremost with Russian diplomatic efforts," he added.
The Russian official said that the tragedy will not hamper efforts to restore ties between Ankara and Moscow, which started with a letter from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to Putin.
"Against all odds, today we stand in solidarity with the people of Turkey," he said.
"Tuesday's attack underlines the need for the entire world to unite against terrorism," speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament and head of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Sergei Naryshkin said on Wednesday.
"This terrorist act once again reaffirms the need to unite the efforts of the entire civilized world in the fight against this terrible evil," Naryshkin added.
