“You look like a Turkish man and this is a compliment”

I know that my physique can mislead people. When I travel to England, I am always questioned for 5 – 10 minutes, separately than the rest of my friends, just because they find me Arab… I have been called Italian, Spanish and many more. Yesterday I became a Turkish man too!
“You know, mr Ilias, you don’t look like a Greek, you look more like a Turkish man. And this is a compliment”. “Turkish man? Compliment? Ooooooooooooooooooooook…” The guy explained to me that he didn’t have good experience from the Greeks he met in the past and for him me being a Turk is something good. He knew that Greeks and Turks are not exactly the best friends in this planet, but he asked me not to insulted and he insisted in his comment.
The truth is that I have plenty of Turkish friends. I respect them a lot and I have nothing against them. I also try to judge people based on their character, not their nationality. But you can not imagine the shock for someone who declares that he is proud to be 100% Greek to receive this kind of “compliments”.
(With this globalization thing… as time goes by… in the end I should be happy when someone finds me Turk, Arab, Italian, Spanish, Palestinian or whatever else… as long as he doesn’t say that I look like Britney Spears or another woman… like how some people pronounce my name… usually the call me with wrong pronunciation… when they apologize, I reply to them “as long as you don’t call me Cristina or Susana, call me Elias, Ilias, Alias or whatever other version is more comfortable for you”…)
What is the point of me saying all the above? In the level of international business, we have to accept that people may not share with us the same ideas, may not even understand our name, or they may find it proper to let us know that we belong to somewhere else than where we are… But if we don’t try to understand and respect their opinion, if we don’t search for the differences in culture, then we can not understand each other. This understanding through nationalities, countries, civilizations and histories is the key to succeed in many different fields of life, business and private too.