Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told his American counterpart John Kerry that Ankara and Moscow believe supporters of the US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen were behind this week’s assassination of the Russian ambassador Andrey Karlov.

Ankara is seeking the extradition of Gulen from the US as it believes the cleric masterminded the failed coup attempt in July.

Turkey has dismissed tens of thousands of people, including military personnel, policemen, judges, prosecutors and civil servants, from duty over their links to the Gulenist network in the wake of the botched putsch.

Ankara is frustrated at the US’ slow response to its requests for the handing over of the Islamic cleric that has led to wild speculations among government supporters that Washington somehow played a role or supported the coup attempt. Such comments anger the US, Turkey’s long-time ally.

Cavusoglu and Kerry had a telephone conversation on December 20 during which the Turkish minister informed the US State Secretary on the killing of the Russian envoy and the perpetrator, a 22-year old off-duty police officer, Anadolu Agency reports, citing Turkish diplomatic sources.

Mevlut Mert Altintas, who had served in Ankara’s riot police unit, shot dead Karlov on December 19, while the Russian envoy was delivering a speech at an art gallery in the Turkish capital. According to the Turkish media, Altintas had attended a high school in his home town Aydin run by supporters of Gulen and graduated from a police college, where the Gulenists were very active.

“Kerry in his conversation with Cavusoglu 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 because of the presence of Gulen here in the United States,” John Kirby, spokesperson for the US State Department, told reporters on December 20.

“And it’s a ludicrous claim, absolutely false, there’s no basis of truth in it whatsoever, and the Secretary made that very clear in his discussions today with the foreign minister,” Kirby added.

Kerry offered assistance to the investigation into the “horrific murder” of the Russian ambassador, according to the readout from the US Secretary State’s call with Cavusoglu.

Russia has already sent a team of experts to Turkey to help investigate Karlov’s murder. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian leader Vladimir Putin believe the assassination was aimed at disrupting the normalisation of Turkish-Russian relations and derailing peace efforts in Syria.

Syria talks

Foreign ministers from Turkey, Russia and Iran met in Moscow on December 20 in an effort to revive peace plans to end the Syrian conflict.

The joint statement adopted at the meeting contains a pledge to pool efforts in the struggle against the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, as well as other related terrorist organizations, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said, according to TASS.

The ministers agreed to revitalise the political process to end the Syria crisis with Turkey, Russia and Iran reiterating their full respect for the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Syria, Press TV reports.

The three countries are ready to act as guarantors in a peace deal between the Syrian government and opposition groups, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

“We weren’t a party to the talks, but Secretary Kerry did speak today to both Lavrov and Cavusoglu. And they provided the Secretary a sense of how the discussions went,” Kirby told reporters in Washington. “The Secretary certainly welcomes any effort to try to get a ceasefire in Syria that can actually have meaningful results, particularly for those people that remain in Aleppo, as well as the resumption of political talks. He again stressed the need to try to get those political talks back on track as soon as possible,” Kirby added.