TORONTO -- The president of the European Commission was taken aback after she was left without a seat during a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The official visit between Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel, and Turkish President Erdogan got off to an awkward start when the three leaders walked into a meeting room where only two centre-stage seats were set up.
Footage of the April 6 meeting in Ankara, Turkey, shows von der Leyen gesturing in disbelief at the two men and can be heard sighing before taking a seat on a nearby sofa.
The president of the European Council and former Belgian prime minister, Charles Michel, was the one who snagged the centre-stage seat next to Erdogan.
Eric Mamer, an EU executive spokesman, said “the president of the Commission was clearly surprised” by the gaffe.
During the meeting, von der Leyen raised the issue of women's rights and the Istanbul Convention, a treaty on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence that Turkey signed in 2011 but withdrew from last month.
The seat snafu garnered attention on social media, with Spanish politician and Member of European Parliament Iratxe García Pérez calling out the incident as “shameful.”
Violeta Bulc, a former EU commissioner, also tweeted “What a diplomatic fiasco.”
The Turkish government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter.
