The Netherlands’ ambassador to China has been suspended because of a secret relationship with a Chinese national who worked at the embassy, the Telegraaf said on Monday.

The paper bases its claim on diplomatic sources and says the affair between the two is ‘the talk of the embassy’. Ambassador Ron Keller, 58, is unmarried, but the affair has made him vulnerable and the foreign ministry has started an investigation, the paper said.

Keller is currently in the Netherlands but is unlikely to return to his post, the paper said.

An experienced diplomat, Keller has been in Beijing for less than a year and previously represented the Netherlands in Turkey, Russia and Ukraine.