Karlov confirmed that he was invited to the ministry, where he had discussed several issues with the Turkish side.
"The issue of Syrian Kurds was touched upon," the ambassador said, adding that the Turkish side was concerned over Russia’s potential connections with the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (DUP) which it believes is linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Earlier this week, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that Ankara had warned Moscow and Washington of the inadmissibility of providing military aid to Syrian Kurds. According to Davutoglu, there is no guarantee that weapons supplied to the Syrian Kurds would not end up in the hands of the PKK.
"I replied saying that Russia’s international contacts were never aimed against interests of some other country, and will never in any way be a threat to Turkey’s interests. The question of Russia arming DUP was not discussed, as we are not supplying any weapons to the Syrian Kurds. We only spoke of political contacts with them," Karlov said.
Russia supplies arms to the Iraqi Kurds with the consent of Baghdad and exclusively through the Iraqi government.
Tensions in Turkey escalated in mid-summer when the country launched a military campaign against PKK in northern Iraq, after the militant group claimed responsibility for the murders of two Turkish police officers who they claim had aligned themselves with Islamic State.
