Leontares, at the head of a group of Byzantine aristocrats and officials and supplied with gifts, met Mehmed at the Constantinopolitan suburb of Koutoulos (probably modern Kurtuluş) and escorted him to Diplokionion (modern Beşiktaş), where the Emperor and his sons awaited in their galley.
Kurtuluş was born in Uşak, Turkey, and moved at the age of 18 months to Germany, where he grew up with his brother, Tekin, in Salzgitter, Lower Saxony.