MOSCOW, October 23 (RIA Novosti) - A Russian woman arrested in Finland for kidnapping her own son has said she wants to make peace with her Finnish ex-husband.
Rimma Salonen was arrested in Tampere earlier this month after returning to Finland to withdraw cash from her bank account. She was fined and given an 18-month suspended sentence for illegally taking her son Anton out of the country last year.
The boy's father, Paavo Salonen, who controversially took Anton back to Finland with the help of a Finnish diplomat this year, has said he wants to see his ex-wife behind bars.
Rimma Salonen told the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper: "I have decided to take the first step, and try to make peace with Paavo. It is time to end this public debacle and start to talk on a personal, family level."
She stressed that the scandal is psychologically damaging to six-year-old Anton.
"It is time to stop all this. Now I will negotiate with Paavo in the presence of lawyers. All of this will happen on a personal level, without media reports," she said.
On April 12 this year, Paavo Salonen took Anton out of Russia with the help of St. Petersburg-based Finnish diplomat Simo Pietilainen, sparking a diplomatic row between Russia and Finland.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov later protested to his Finnish counterpart, Alexander Stubb, over the incident, and Pietilainen was declared persona non grata in Russia.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in June that the former Finnish diplomat's actions undermined trust between the countries, and Finnish President Tarja Halonen condemned the behavior of the diplomat.
