Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan received Nobel laureate Professor Aziz Sancar at the Presidential Complex in Ankara.
The meeting, which was held on Tuesday, was closed to the media.
Gwen Sancar, the wife of Aziz Sancar, also attended the meeting, which lasted for 1.5 hours.
"I handed the award to the Chief of the General Staff," Sancar said after the meeting with President Erdoğan.
"I am planning to return to Turkey to contribute to studies in the country. I am very thankful to my country. And I miss Turkish people and simit the most," he said in his statement to Turkish A Haber television.
He also said that he is proud of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic in response to a question about a symbol on the tie he was wearing.
Dr. Sancar won the Nobel Prize for his contribution to mapping the ways cells safeguard genetic information.
He has been researching DNA repair and the regulation of the Circadian clock for years.
