Erdogan presented to participants of the NATO summit in Ankara personalized revolvers with live ammunition. The unusual diplomatic gesture immediately turned into a legal conundrum.
According to Reuters, after the meeting in Ankara, the Turkish leader presented a vintage revolver for each of the NATO leaders. The weapon was accompanied by ammunition, which immediately turned the diplomatic souvenir into a legal problem for many recipients.
According to the agency, we are talking about the model Gumusay .357 Magnum – a rare Turkish revolver produced in the 1990s. Photos released by the office of Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda showed the weapon in a wooden case with Turkish and NATO symbols.
All leaders received the same model, with the recipient’s name engraved on the barrel of each revolver, according to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s spokesman.
Gift with ammunition
The unusual gift included not only weapons, but also live ammunition. According to a Downing Street source, the revolver given to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was accompanied by a cleaning kit and 500 rounds.
Starmer himself, as Turkish media reported, told reporters about the gift while returning from Ankara. At the same time, the British prime minister was unable to import the revolver into the UK due to strict firearms regulations. As a result, the weapons remained in Turkey and must be deactivated.
Erdogan, according to Türkiye Today, included a special permit with the gift, which exempted the weapons from Turkish export procedures. But, as it turned out, even a presidential note does not abolish the laws of recipient countries. What a surprise for international diplomacy: the laws still exist.
What will they do with revolvers?
Gifts were received not only by the leaders of NATO countries, but also by representatives of the European Union. According to ERT, citing Politico, personalized pistols with ammunition were handed over to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the President of the European Council, António Costa.
The European Council said Costa’s security team took the weapons for inspection. It must then be transported and stored in accordance with Belgian procedures and the security requirements of the General Secretariat of the Council.
A spokesman for Ursula von der Leyen said the head of the European Commission thanked Erdogan for the gesture. After safe transportation and deactivation, the weapon is planned to be transferred to a military museum.
Reuters also reports that Belgian Prime Minister Bart de Wever, after returning, handed over a revolver with ammunition to the Brussels airport police. In Poland, President Karol Nawrocki’s weapons were awaiting customs clearance at Warsaw airport. In the Netherlands and Sweden, revolvers were handed over to the embassies of these countries in Ankara.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, according to Reuters, has already donated the revolver for storage in the Palazzo Chigi along with other state gifts. The Greek prime minister reportedly intends to donate his gift to the Military Museum in Athens.
Why did the gift raise questions?
Even if the gift was symbolic, it faced two problems in Europe: gun regulations and restrictions on the value of gifts that officials could accept.
Therefore, it is unlikely that recipients will be able to keep the revolvers as personal effects. In most cases, we are talking about either deactivation or transfer to museums, embassies or government storage facilities.
Erdogan’s gesture itself looks like more than just an exotic souvenir. Reuters notes that the Turkish president wanted to emphasize the importance of Turkey’s defense industry, which has become an important export and foreign policy tool for Ankara.
According to the Small Arms Survey, cited by Reuters, Türkiye was third in 2019–2024 largest exporter of small arms in the world after the USA and Italyand the volume of exports during this period amounted to about $3 billion.
Editorial comment
Erdogan’s gift turned out to be extremely symbolic: NATO is discussing security, Europe is tightening weapons regulations, and the leaders are presented with personalized revolvers with cartridges. In the end, the gesture, intended as a showcase for Turkey’s defense industry, also served as a reminder that diplomatic protocol sometimes walks a fine line between ceremony and legal headache.
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