Turkey condemns Italian PM's remarks branding Erdogan 'a dictator'
Italy's prime minister has accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of humiliating European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen earlier this week and said it is important to be frank with "dictators," drawing condemnation from Ankara.
Von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel met Erdogan in Ankara on Tuesday.
The Commission chief was clearly taken aback when the two men sat on the only two chairs prepared, relegating her to an adjacent sofa.
"I absolutely do not agree with Erdogan's behaviour towards President von der Leyen... I think it was not appropriate behaviour and I was very sorry for the humiliation von der Leyen had to suffer," Mario Draghi told reporters.
"With these, let's call them what they are - dictators - with whom one nonetheless has to coordinate, one has to be frank when expressing different visions and opinions."
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The Italian ambassador to Ankara was summoned to the foreign ministry over Draghi's comments, Turkey's state-owned Anadolu news agency reported, and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu slammed the remarks.
"We strongly condemn the appointed Italian Prime Minister Draghi's unacceptable, populist discourse and his ugly and unrestrained comments about our elected president," Cavusoglu wrote on Twitter.
Turkey blames EU rivalry
Earlier on Thursday, Cavusoglu said that the seating at the meeting was arranged in line with the bloc's demands and international protocol and that Turkey was being subject to "unjust accusations," Reuters reported.
On Wednesday, multiple Turkish officials spoken to by Middle East Eye denied responsibility for the "chair gaffe", saying that it was all the EU delegation's fault.
They blamed a rivalry within the European Union between Michel and von der Leyen, who are typically seen as equivalents within the union.
One senior Turkish official said Michel's staff agreed on the seating at the presidency before the visit took place.
"However there was no representative from von der Leyen's team," the official said. "So we didn't get their input."
A second senior Turkish official said every arrangement during the visit was made in collaboration with EU officials who visited the country before the summit took place.
Turkish officials were swift to try to make it up to the European Commission president.
Ankara is said to have offered the EU delegation a different seating arrangement during lunch: Erdogan would sit directly opposite both Michel and von der Leyen.
Yet Michel's team reportedly rejected the offer, and Michel alone sat across from Erdogan, with von der Leyen again to the side.
"Michel's team only accepted to give von der Leyen a seat in the same height and type," the first senior official said.
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