Sergei Lavrov told journalists that efforts were being taken so that "the relatives [of the four men] can receive and bury the bodies of our comrades, and so that the criminals who committed this ghastly crime are found and brought to justice."
Russia's Foreign Ministry Monday conceded that the four diplomats abducted June 3 had in all likelihood been executed by the Mujahideen Shura Council, an Islamic extremist group linked to al-Qaeda.
"It is with great pain that we announce that the irremediable has apparently happened to the captured employees of the Russian Embassy in Iraq, despite all the measures that were taken to free our people," a ministry statement said Monday.
On Sunday, Arab television channel Al Jazeera reported referring to an Internet statement made by al-Qaeda in Iraq that terrorists had executed the four employees of the Russian Embassy in revenge for what they claimed was "the torture, killing and expulsion of our brothers and sisters by the infidel Russian government" in Chechnya.
