ANKARA – 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, insisting that the EU's own protocol requests were applied during a meeting at the Turkish presidential palace.
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.