YEREVAN, JULY 27, ARMENPRESS. Greek authorities granted a temporary residence permit to Sevan Nishanyan, the Istanbul-based ethnic Armenian scholar who recently escaped from a prison in Turkey and requested asylum in Greece.

The Greek asylum agency granted the permit for 6 months.

In an exclusive interview to ARMENPRESS on July 25, Nishanyan said he had applied for asylum in Greece. “I have always thought of Greece as my second or third homeland, this is a very beautiful and civilized country. I’ll be very happy to spend the new phase of my life here”, he said.

Nishanyan also mentioned he would like to travel to Armenia as soon as he is able to.

“I got a lot of support and love from my friends in Armenia when I was in prison. There are many people whom I’d like to thank”, he said.

Nishanyan was arrested, falsely incriminated and imprisoned in Turkey for carrying out “illegal” construction in his own garden in 2014. He was sentenced to 17 years in prison.

Even Turkish media said the arrest was an obvious framing by Turkish authorities, because Nishanyan has publicly criticized Turkey’s government’s mistakes.

Numerous activities and individuals have called for his release, saying that the true reason of his arrest is the fact that he dared to criticize the official history of Turkey by writing the “False Republic” book.

The scholar escaped from the minimum security prison on July 14.