ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Turkish man who became the target of Moscow’s manhunt, after boasting he had gunned down a Russian fighter pilot parachuting from his crashing plane on the Turkish-Syrian border, was spotted at a funeral ceremony in Istanbul on Wednesday.
Alparslan Celik told reporters he did not have a fixed abode and would return to Syria after the funeral, where he would continue to fight to defend Turkmen villages being bombed by the regime, according to the Hurriyet Daily News.
“I am here and there. I am going and returning. And now, I came for the funeral ceremony and I will go again,” said Celik, the son of a former district mayor from Turkey’s Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), at the funeral of İbrahim Kucuk, a district head of the MHP who was killed in an air bombardment on a Turkmen village in Syria.
Celik has been the target of a Russian manhunt since after November 24, when a Turkish jet shot down a Russian warplane on Turkey’s border with Syria, where the Russians have thrown in their air force behind the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
Celik proudly boasted on video after the incident that he had gunned down Oleg Peshkov, the surviving pilot who had parachuted from his jet after being hit by Turkish jets.
Peshkov’s plane was apparently on a bombing run against Celik and his Turkmen comrades who are fighting the Syrian regime, which Russia intervened to support.
Peshkov said he had seen the pilot bombing the village.
“There is no place for a person who has bombed civilian Turkmens every day in my conscious,” said Celik. “Reprisal is the most natural right. There is life in reprisal,” he added.
Alparslan Celik told reporters he did not have a fixed abode and would return to Syria after the funeral, where he would continue to fight to defend Turkmen villages being bombed by the regime, according to the Hurriyet Daily News.
“I am here and there. I am going and returning. And now, I came for the funeral ceremony and I will go again,” said Celik, the son of a former district mayor from Turkey’s Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), at the funeral of İbrahim Kucuk, a district head of the MHP who was killed in an air bombardment on a Turkmen village in Syria.
Celik has been the target of a Russian manhunt since after November 24, when a Turkish jet shot down a Russian warplane on Turkey’s border with Syria, where the Russians have thrown in their air force behind the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
Celik proudly boasted on video after the incident that he had gunned down Oleg Peshkov, the surviving pilot who had parachuted from his jet after being hit by Turkish jets.
Peshkov’s plane was apparently on a bombing run against Celik and his Turkmen comrades who are fighting the Syrian regime, which Russia intervened to support.
Peshkov said he had seen the pilot bombing the village.
“There is no place for a person who has bombed civilian Turkmens every day in my conscious,” said Celik. “Reprisal is the most natural right. There is life in reprisal,” he added.
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