Foreign Affairs Minister sends condolences to German people

It was with deep sadness that the Slovak Foreign and European Affairs Ministry learnt about the latest terrorist attack on a Christmas market in Berlin, reported the ministry's press department to TASR on Tuesday. "This is a cold-blooded barbaric deed, which took advantage of one of the most important holidays of the year in order to cause death and suffering to many innocent people. Terrorism is an evil against which we must all stand united. On behalf of the ministry and the Slovak people, we express our condolences to the families of the victims and the entire German nation," reads the text. Slovak Foreign Affairs Minister Miroslav Lajčák on Tuesday sent his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier a letter of condolences in which he voiced his indignation and sympathies in relation to this callous act. Lajčák also sent his sympathies to his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in the wake of Monday's attack on Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov and condemned the diplomat's murder. Karlov was shot on Monday (December 19) by a 22-year-old police officer at a photograph exhibition held in Ankara entitled Russia Through the Eyes of Turks. The police shot the attacker dead in a subsequent shoot-out.