MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st March, 2020) The social media accounts of Sputnik Turkey's editorial staff continue receiving threats following attacks on residencies of three of its employees in Ankara, the news agency said on Sunday.
Earlier in the day, Sputnik Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan announced that unknown assailants had tried to force their way in homes of Sputnik employees. She later stated that there had been no contact with the journalists after they went to the police. The Russian Foreign Ministry has urged Turkey to help clarify the incident.
"The editorial staff of Sputnik Turkey continues receiving threats on the social media pages," the agency said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Sozcu newspaper reports that three Sputnik employees have been detained over the publication of an article on the Turkish province of Hatay handed over by France in 1939.
Leonid Slutsky, the head of the Russian lower house's foreign affairs committee, told Sputnik that the fact of Sputnik employees remain detained by Turkey's security agencies makes the situation even more grave.
"We are waiting for the official explanation from Turkey's authorities ... Apart from that, such steps do not correspond to the level of Russia-Turkey relations," he said.
According to Sputnik Turkey, organized groups of people screaming nationalist slogans as well as threats tried to break doors of three Sputnik employees' apartments. The attackers had fled before the police arrived. No one is said to have been hurt.
