France suspends Turkey consul over refugees
France has suspended an honorary consul in Turkey’s coastal town of Bodrum over reports that she has been selling rubber dinghies to refugees who wanted to reach Europe.
"The [foreign] minister (Laurent Fabius) has just ordered her suspension," French Foreign Ministry spokesman Romain Nadal said after a television report showed the woman in her sailing goods shop in Bodrum.
"Francoise Olcay has been informed of her suspension by France's consul general in Istanbul to which she belongs," Nadal added.
She admitted to selling inflatable dinghies and life jackets to asylum seekers in footage secretly filmed by French TV channel France 2.
The consul, who was appointed in October 2014, argued that if she had not sold the equipment to the refugees, they would have bought them from others.
Bodrum is one of the main destinations for refugees who seek to cross to the Greek island of Kos and from there to wealthier European countries.
Turkey, along with Lebanon and Jordan, has so far housed hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees escaping the deadly foreign-backed militancy in the Arab state.
According to latest figures released by the International Organization for Migration, over 430,000 refugees have crossed the Mediterranean into Europe so far this year, while nearly 3,000 have died or gone missing in packed and rickety boats.
Europe has faced an unprecedented influx of refugee, which has escalated over the summer as asylum seekers are coming directly to the continent instead of staying in camps in neighboring countries.
This is while the continent is divided over how to deal with the flood of people as some eastern states including the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia have failed to show much enthusiasm to take in refugees.
Honorary consuls work without being paid. They are public servants that have a special status, which makes it possible for them to also engage in paid professional work, but they are not professional diplomats.
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