ANKARA, August 7. /TASS/. A Russian woman, Zarina Albegonova, sent an open letter to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pleading for his assistance in having her daughter return to her. Turkish Hurriyet published the letter on Sunday.
"Sending open letters of the kind is not quite a practice in Turkey, but I together with my lawyers still chose this attempt to attract attention of the president and the society," the woman told TASS, adding for recent five years she had been fighting at courts to return her daughter Aylin, whom back in 2011 her former husband Murat Aydemir kidnapped and continues keeping illegally.
"Mr. President, you are my last hope in the fight for justice," the Russian woman wrote in the letter to Erdogan. "I hope you could be aware of my situation, as the Russian government has informed you."
"My former husband Murat Aydemir kidnapped my daughter in 2011," she wrote. "In compliance with the Turkish legislation (Article 337 of the Civil Code) custody belongs to the mother," and the local Themis has confirmed so.
Besides, the Russian woman said, "Istanbul’s Criminal Court in 2012 sentenced the former husband to five months suspended sentence for the child abduction."
"For seven months now I have not seen her or heard her voice," the letter reads. "I and my daughter, who is not a Turkish citizen, are facing huge injustice. Mr. President, I am asking you to control this situation and help me in having justice served."
The woman met her future spouse as she studied at a U.S. university. In 2004, they registered their marriage in North Ossetia, where Zarina lived, and then moved to Turkey. However, the marriage was not legalized in Turkey. In 2008, the couple became parents of Aylin, and in 2010 of another daughter Selin, who now lives with the mother.
Russia’s legislator supervising relations with compatriots Kazbek Taisayev is involved in settlement of this problem from the Russian side. He told TASS all materials on this case had been presented to the Russian Foreign Ministry. He also said, on August 9 Erdogan will have a meeting with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg. "We hope, the meeting of our leaders will hope in settling this topic. And after the negotiations, my colleagues and I plan travelling to Turkey to finalize all issues," he said.