Gold trader's trial strains US and Turkey relations

A trial which has strained Turkish-US ties before it even started opens this week in New York despite the possible absence of a defendant who Turkey says is cooperating with prosecutors in what it calls “a clear plot” against Ankara.

Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab, charged with conspiring to evade US sanctions on Iran, has dropped out of sight in the last two months, prompting Turkey’s prime minister to suggest he has reached a plea deal with US authorities.

James Margolin, a spokesman for US prosecutors in Manhattan, declined to comment on whether Zarrab was cooperating with the authorities. A lawyer for Zarrab, Benjamin Brafman, declined to comment for this article.

Zarrab and eight other people, including Turkey’s former economy minister and three executives of Turkish state-owned Halkbank, have been charged with engaging in transactions worth hundreds of millions of dollars for Iran’s government and Iranian entities from 2010 to 2015 in a scheme to evade US sanctions.

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