Turkey deports American ISIS suspect stuck at Greek border

ANKARA, TURKEY — An American suspected of being a member of the Islamic State (IS) group is being repatriated to the United States after spending three days in a no man’s land between Turkey and Greece, Turkey’s Interior Ministry said Thursday.

The U.S. agreed to take him in and will provide him with travel documents, the ministry said, adding that the repatriation was underway.

The move comes a day after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington.

The man was stuck in the heavily militarized border zone after Turkey tried to expel him to Greece on Monday, but Athens refused him entry. Turkish media have identified him as 39-year-old Mohammad Darwis B. and said he was an American citizen of Jordanian background.

The Ministry said Thursday the man had asked to be deported to a “third country” and chose Greece.

He had been spotted in the no man’s land for three straight days. Media reports said Turkish authorities allowed him to spend the night in a vehicle, where he was fed.

Turkey has engaged in a new push to deport foreign IS members who are held in Turkish prisons or in Syria, since it invaded parts of northeast Syria to drive away Syrian Kurdish fighters it considers to be terrorists from a border area. Turkey also expelled on Thursday seven German and one British IS suspects to Berlin and London. The state-run news organization Anadolu Agency said two men, four women and an infant boarded a plane bound for Berlin.