Turkey rejects claims of sexist snub toward von der Leyen

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey on Thursday strongly rejected accusations that it snubbed Ursula von der Leyen – one of the European Union’s most powerful executives – because of her gender after a protocol gaffe during a meeting at the Turkish presidential palace ignited a public uproar.

The affair also branched into a diplomatic spat between Turkey and Italy, whose prime minister compared the Turkish president to a dictator and spoke of von der Leyen’s “humiliation.”

Von der Leyen – the European Commission president – and European Council chief Charles Michel met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for talks on Turkey-EU relations on Tuesday. The guests were led into a large room for discussions with Erdogan, but only two chairs had been set out in front of the EU and Turkish flags for the three leaders.

Von der Leyen stood looking at the men who took the chairs, expressing her astonishment with a “ehm” sound and a gesture of disappointment. She was later seen seated on a large beige sofa, away from her male counterparts.

The images, also revealing a lack of unity among the two EU leaders, drew intense criticism on social media and accusations of gender discrimination.

Turkey insisted that the EU’s own protocol requests were applied but the EU Council head of protocol said his team did not have access, during their preparatory inspection, to the room where the incident happened.

“If the room for the tete-a-tete had been visited, we should have suggested to our hosts that, as a courtesy, they replace the sofa with two armchairs for the president of the Commission,” Dominique Marro wrote in a note made public by the EU Council. He added that the incident might have been prompted by the order of protocol established by the EU treaty.

“In general, the protocol for third countries makes a clear distinction between the status of head of state, held by the president of the European Council, and the status of prime minister, held by the president of the Commission,” he said.