Turkey releases grieving father to Greece in post-disaster diplomacy
Turkey-Greece ties are continuing to mend with a diplomatic gestures and mutual kindnesses in the wake of their recent disasters.
IZMIR, Turkey — Aegean frenemies Turkey and Greece continue their post-disaster de-escalation of tensions with a diplomatic gesture from Ankara by allowing the transfer of a Greek national from a Turkish prison to a Greek one.
Dimitris Nalbantis is the father of the conductor, 28-year-old Nikos Nalbantis, who died when the passenger train he conducted crashed into a freight train south of the Tempe Valley in northern Greece on Feb. 28. Following the accident, Greek authorities have asked Turkey to temporarily release him so he can attend his son's funeral.
The issue was first discussed among the two countries' top diplomats and then taken before President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who agreed to his temporary release and a transfer that would enable Nalbantis to serve the rest of his sentence in his country, a Turkish diplomatic source told Al-Monitor. Nalbantis was convicted of drug smuggling.
Greek sources confirmed that the transfer was underway and that Nikos’s burial would likely occur once his father was in Greece. Then Dimitris would serve the rest of his sentence in his country.
