BUCHAREST, Romania
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will cut short official talks Wednesday in Romania following the slaying of a Turkish prosecutor who was held hostage at an Istanbul courthouse Tuesday.
Mehmet Selim Kiraz, 46, died at Istanbul's Florence Nightingale Hospital after being shot multiple times in the head and body by two terrorists who held him hostage Tuesday midday in his office at the courthouse. The terrorists were later killed by police.
He had been handling the case of Berkin Elvan, the 15-year-old boy who was critically injured during 2013's Gezi Park protests and died in March 2014 following a 269-day coma.
In remarks he made at a joint press conference with the Romanian president in Bucharest on Wednesday, Erdogan pledged that Turkey would resolutely pursue its fight against terrorism.
"Democracy is not an ordinary system that would succumb to such attacks," he said.
Erdogan added that he believed it was a must for those who believe in democracy to stand together against "such terrorists."
According to Turkish presidency sources, Erdogan will complete his scheduled visits in the Romanian capital Bucharest early as the dinner to be hosted by his Romanian counterpart Klaus Iohannis has been cancelled.
Instead, the Turkish president will return to Istanbul and is expected to pay a visit to the slain prosecutor's family to offer his condolences.
Earlier on Tuesday, a photograph — showing a gunman pointing a weapon at Kiraz’s head — was published on a Facebook page claiming to be close to an armed leftist group called the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front.
In the background, a poster read in Turkish: "We want Berkin's murderers."
The Facebook page also said that the DHKP-C members would kill the prosecutor if their demands were not met within three hours.
DHKP-C is a 1978-founded Marxist-Leninist party and is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
In recent years, the organization has increased its acts of violence.
Last week, DHKP-C allegedly carried out a bomb attack against Istanbul-based Adimlar magazine, a political monthly, killing one writer and wounding three others.
