ANKARA (Reuters) – An American diplomat was arrested in Turkey last month for selling his passport to a Syrian trying to travel to Germany, Istanbul police said on Wednesday.
They identified the diplomat as “D.J.K.”, working at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.
The police said they had video evidence of the diplomat exchanging clothes with the Syrian at Istanbul airport before handing over the diplomatic passport, which had been identified as suspicious at passport control.
The diplomat was found to be carrying $10,000 in an envelope, was arrested, and remains in detention, the police statement said.
The U.S. State Department did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment.
Ties between Turkey and the United States have been strained in recent years, not least over Turkey’s detention of U.S. diplomatic mission workers accused of ties to a network that Ankara blames for a failed coup attempt in 2016.
(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
