Calling me a dictator was a “total rudeness”: this is how Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan commented on the words with which Prime Minister Mario Draghi condemned the episode renamed Sofagate on 9 April.
“Before you say something like that to Tayyip Erdogan you have to know your story, but we have seen that you don’t know it. You are a person who has been nominated, not elected, ”said the Turkish president, according to the news agency Ansa, which reported what was announced by the Turkish news agency Anadolu.
“I absolutely disagree with the behavior of the Turkish president Erdogan towards the president (…) I think it was not an appropriate behavior, I was very sorry for the humiliation that the president of the (EU) Commission von der Leyen had to suffer”, Mario Draghi had said, in reference to the treatment that had been reserved to the number one of the European Commission, in his meeting with the President of the EU Council Charles Michel with the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on 7 April last.
“And here – continued Draghi – the consideration to be made and that perhaps I have already made in another press conference is that with these, let’s say, let’s call them for what they are, dictators, who, however, need to collaborate, one must to be frank in expressing one’s diversity of views, opinions, behaviors, visions of society and must also be ready to collaborate, to cooperate rather than collaborate to ensure the interests of one’s country. This is important: in my opinion we need to find the right balance ”.
Von der Leyen, it is recalled, remained practically standing, while Erdogan invited the President of the EU Council Michel to sit in the chair next to his. The president of the European Commission, visibly perplexed as to where she could take a seat, had been ‘confined’ to another sofa.
Ansa reports that, in a speech to a group of young people in the library of his presidential palace in Ankara, President Erdogan accused Draghi of “total impertinence”, also stating that “Draghi has unfortunately damaged” the development of ” Turkey-Italy relations “.
The comments against Draghi did not come only from Erdogan. The deputy chairman of the AKP party, Erdogan’s party, that is
Numan Kurtulmus said that “there are no dictators in our country. If you want to see a dictator, look at your own history. Look at Mussolini ”.