ROME - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has fired back at Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who in a press conference last week called him a “dictator”, saying that the Italian’s statement was “total rudeness.”

  Speaking in the library of his Presidential Palace in Ankara, Erdogan said, “before saying anything of the kind to Tayyip Erdogan you need to understand your own story, but we have seen that you don’t know it. You were nominated, not elected.” He continued that Draghi “has unfortunately damaged” the development of the “Turkish-Italian relationship.”

  Pina Picierno, a Democratic Party MEP, commented on the war of words, saying, “Erdogan has always been the polar opposite with respect to democracy. Despite this, he allows himself to impart lessons to Mario Draghi. He forgets that our Prime Minister received the confidence of Parliament, the greatest expression of popular sovereignty and thus democracy.”

  Nicola Fratoianni, the Secretary of Italian Left, added, “that Mr Erdogan, who arrests Parliamentarians of the opposition and bombs Kurdish villages, wants to give lessons on style and manners to the Prime Minister is truly hilarious.”

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