Turkey Sends Corpse of Shot Down Pilot Back to Russia: Reports
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Turkey Monday sent back to Russia the corpse of a pilot killed when his plane was shot down by the Turkish air force for allegedly violating its air space on the Syrian border, reports said.
A special flight carrying the corpse of Oleg Peshkov left Ankara airport for Russia, AFP cited the state-run Anatolia news agency as saying. The Turkey-based agency did not provide further details.
His body had at the weekend been taken from Syria to southern Turkey and then flown to Ankara.
Both pilots aboard the Su-24 war plane ejected and parachuted to the ground on the Syrian side of the border after being shot down by Turkish F-16s in the November 24 incident.
Peshkov was killed in circumstances that have yet to be fully explained while the second pilot, Konstantin Murakhtin, was rescued unharmed and has already spoken to Russian media.
Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border on Tuesday, saying the jet had violated its air space, in one of the most serious publicly acknowledged clashes between a NATO member country and Russia for half a century.
