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| - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday slammed Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi for calling him a "dictator", saying it was vulgar. Last week, Draghi lashed out at Erdogan for hosting a summit with the EU's two top leaders at which European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen ended up without a chair. Turkish officials rejected the blame for the incident, saying they were applying protocol instructions received from Brussels. Speaking to reporters, Draghi said he was "sorry for the humiliation that the president of the commission had to suffer with these, let's call them for what they are, dictators". In his first public comments on the episode, Erdogan on Wednesday said Draghi's comments jeopardised Turkish-Italian relations. "The comment made by the Italian prime minister is tantamount to complete impertinence, a complete vulgarity," Erdogan said in a video clip posted on Twitter. "At a time when we hoped relations between Turkey and Italy would reach a good point, this man called Draghi unfortunately scuppered the ties." Erdogan also urged Draghi -- who he pointed out had been appointed and not elected by the people -- to look back at Italy's history, in an apparent reference to the reign of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. "You should first of all be aware of your history to make such a comment about Tayyip Erdogan, but we see that you are not," the Turkish leader said. fo/zak/dl
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