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TV: Widow of downed Su-24 pilot ready to meet with Turkish foreign minister

Cavusoglu said earlier that Turkey was ready to provide financial support to the family of the killed pilot
The funeral of Oleg Peshkov, a commander of the Russian Sukhoi Su-24 bomber aircraft downed on November 24, 2015 in Syria Alexandr Ryumin/TASS
The funeral of Oleg Peshkov, a commander of the Russian Sukhoi Su-24 bomber aircraft downed on November 24, 2015 in Syria
© Alexandr Ryumin/TASS

MOSCOW, November 3. /TASS/. Widow of Russian Su-24 jet pilot Oleg Peshkov downed by Turkey’s Air Force last November said on Thursday she is ready to meet with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.

"No matter how painful this is for our family, we will come for this meeting, we will come to Moscow," Yelena Peshkova told the Rossiya-24 TV channel.

Cavusoglu said earlier in the interview with Russian television that Turkey was ready to provide financial support to the family of the killed pilot and he would "pay a visit to the widow of the dead Russian pilot if she agreed."

The Turkish Air Force shot down the Russian Sukhoi-24 bomber on November 24, 2015. Ankara then claimed that the plane had strayed into Turkish airspace. The Russian Defense Ministry said the plane had stayed in Syrian airspace all the time. The crew - the pilot and navigator - ejected themselves. The pilot, Oleg Peshkov, was killed with a machine-gun round from the ground while descending by parachute. The navigator was rescued and taken to base. A Mi-8 helicopter involved in the rescue operation was lost and a contract marine was killed.

Four days later, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on measures to ensure Russia’s national security and protect Russian citizens from criminal and other unlawful actions and on imposing special economic sanctions against Turkey. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan apologized in late June this year for the incident and the relations between the two countries started normalizing.

Alparslan Celik, a Turkish ultra-nationalist Grey Wolves member, suspected of killing the Russian pilot, was detained by Turkey’s law enforcers in March, but he rejects the charges.