UPDATE | Official: Russia ambassador to Turkey has died

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A Russian official says that the country’s ambassador to Turkey has died after being shot by a gunman in Ankara.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova made the announcement in a live televised statement.

Russian Ambassador Andrei Karlov was several minutes into a speech at the embassy-sponsored exhibition in the capital, Ankara, when a man wearing a suit and tie shouted “Allahu akbar” and fired at least eight shots, according to an AP photographer in the audience.

Karlov was a career diplomat and was 62. He joined the diplomatic service in 1976. He served as Russia’s ambassador to Pyongyang in 2001-2006, and later worked as the chief of the Foreign Ministry’s consular department. He had served as the ambassador to Turkey since 2013.