ANKARA (AA) - Icelandic Gunnar Tryggvason became Turkey's Iceland honorary consul following his sister and her husband lost their lives in a traffic accident in Turkey and their survived baby boy was taken good care by Turkish people.
Turkey's honorary consuls all over the world gathered in Ankara with the organization of Turkey's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Gunnar Tryggvason, Turkey's honorary consul since last year, told AA the heartbreaking story of him being a consul.
Icelandic couple Johann Arnason and Dora Dagbjort Tryggvadottir, who came to Turkey for vacation along with their baby boy Daniel in 2010 summer, lost their lives in a traffic accident in Mugla province. Then 6-month old Daniel miraculously survived the accident and was treated in hospital. Turkish doctors and nurses took very good care of him and one of the nurses even nursed him. Daniel was handed over to his uncle Gunnar Tryggvason, who came to Turkey to pick him up. He said "We got here 35 hours after the accident. Baby Daniel was by the time breastfeeding, so one of the nurses in the Mugla hospital breastfed him. She helped him, he was in bad shape, not aware of anything. They took very good care of the baby. We are very thankful for that. All the difficult issues about that accident, taking the bodies back home, everything worked perfectly and we are very grateful to Turkish administration. The Honorary Consul of Iceland in Izmir helped us a lot".
This unfortunate incident initiated a new era for Tryggvason. He said he was impressed by the good care given to Daniel by the doctors and the nurses, and all procedures done smoothly by Turkish officials.
Following the passing away of Turkey's Iceland honorary consul last year, Turkish officials offered Tryggvason to be the consul. "I felt indebted to Turkey. I felt that they had done so much for an Icelander in trouble in Turkey and if there was anything like that to help Turkish people in Iceland, I would definitely do so", said Tryggvason.
On his activities in Iceland, Tryggvason said Iceland was a very small country, only 350,000 people, and there were about 50 Turks living in Reykjavik.
"They are forming an organization. They asked my help to plan a celebration for 23rd April. Activities are very small-scale" said Tryggvason, adding he contacted officials in Afyonkarahisar to share experiences of Iceland on geo-thermal and hot water treatment for people.
Regarding Turkey's image in Iceland, Tryggvason said twenty years ago, Turkey's image in Iceland was damaged due to a divorce between an Icelandic woman and a Turkish man who took their daughters to Turkey. "The media covered it very negatively. It would be very interesting for an Icelandic journalist to find these girls today and ask them" noted Tryggvason.
Answering a question on Iceland's position regarding Turkey's EU membership, Tryggvason said the opinion in Iceland was that nobody should be a member of the EU.
About baby Daniel, his wife said they would bring him back to Turkey in the future. She said they had very good friends in Turkey in Izmir. "Turkish people have a very good heart" she added.
She said "Daniel turned to 3 on April 8th. We are letting him know about his late parents, showing photographs to him. So he will step by step understand that in fact he has two parents. We are not talking about the accident, not yet".
