Turkey and Greece maintain post-disaster diplomacy after train crash

ANKARA — Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered condolences to his Greek counterpart, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Wednesday after the deadly train crash in Greece.

According to the Turkish Presidency, Erdogan — in his message to Sakellaropoulou and Mitsotakis — said he was "deeply saddened" by the loss of lives and wished a speedy recovery to those injured in the collision.

At least 36 people died in the collision of a freight train and a passenger train carrying hundreds of people and in the ensuing fire near the Greek city of Larissa late Tuesday. More than 80 people were injured, according to Greek authorities. The accident prompted the resignation of Greece's transport minister. 

Tensions between the two NATO allies were running high until recently over conflicting territorial claims in the eastern Mediterranean. Slamming the Greek premier’s lobby activities against military sales to Turkey during his Washington visit, Erdogan declared last year that “Mitsotakis no longer exists” for him.

Yet the Feb. 6 twin earthquakes that struck Turkey’s southern and eastern regions as well as northern Syria have offered an unexpected diplomatic offramp to the escalation between the two neighbors. Mitsotakis called Erdogan to express his country’s solidarity with Turkey in the first phone call between the two leaders since Erdogan’s outburst. 

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also extended his condolences to his Greek counterpart, Nikos Dendias, over the train crash in a phone call.

“We share their pain,” he wrote on Twitter.

Dendias was the first European top diplomat to visit the country after the quakes that killed more than 50,000 people. Athens swiftly dispatched one of the largest search and rescue teams to the country. Their work is enshrined in the hearts of Turks, who flooded social media with well wishes and condolence messages for their Greek neighbors over the accident. 

Some Turkish social media users, meanwhile, praised Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis' resignation after the crash, blasting the Turkish government for not taking responsibility for the delayed quake response. 

Prominent journalist Fatih Portakal lamented that no one even apologized in Turkey after the earthquakes let alone resigned.

Turkish movie producer and comedian Sahan Gokbakar also struck an ironic tone.

“The Greek Minister of Transport resigned out of respect for the dead. I don't understand what kind of government there is in Greece?” he wrote. 

Karamanlis said he was resigning out of “respect for the memory of the people who perished so unfairly."