A spokeswoman for Russia's Foreign Ministry says officials will demand an apology from the New York Daily News for a column they say justified the assassination of the Russian Ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov.



"American journalist and writer Gersh Kuntzman wrote in the New York Daily News that he was ‘shedding no tears for Andrei Karlov,' " ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on her Facebook page, as reported by the TASS News Agency.



The diplomat said the ministry will write a letter to the editor and "demand an apology" for publishing the article.





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"We will immediately forward a message to the chief editor of the newspaper that published this Russophobic article justifying a terrorist attack, and demand an apology," Zakahrova said.



She also addressed the columnist directly, criticizing the author for comparing the assassination of the Russian official to the 1938 assassination of the Nazi ambassador to France by a Jewish student, Herschel Grynszpan.

"Gersh Kuntzman, are you seriously comparing a Jewish student’s ideas to the ones of Mevlut Altintas? ... Don’t you understand, you have said that the fight of the Jewish people against anti-Semitism in 1930s amounts to the terrorist ways of the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra (both terror groups outlawed in Russia)? Are they really the same to you? Do you adopt the same sensitive approach to terrorist attacks happening in Israel?" Zakharova said, according to the report.

"And one last thing. I call upon the anti-fascist organizations all over the world to voice their position on this article before it’s too late," urged the Russian diplomat.

On Tuesday, Karlov was assassinated by an off-duty police officer in Ankara who reportedly shouted that his act was revenge for what the Russian forces have been doing in Aleppo, Syria.

In his column published on Tuesday, Kuntzman argued that Karlov was not a private citizen but a soldier of the Russian regime. Likewise, he maintained that his killer was also "a soldier — not a terrorist, mind you, but a soldier."

"Will history vindicate Mevlut Mert Altintas, Karlov’s assassin? That's for history to judge. But it has vindicated Grynszpan — and, indeed, vindicated others who have fought against aggression and fought for freedom," Kuntzman wrote.