What does a world leader do with a gun and six bullets? That was the conundrum Nato leaders faced after the Turkish president offered them each a revolver after the Ankara summit.
Keir Starmer was the first to mention the highly unusual gift presented by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to his guests. On the flight back from Ankara, where Nato leaders had gathered for two days, the British prime minister said he and others had received a revolver engraved with their names.
Alongside the gun sitting in a red box lined in black were six live rounds and a note exempting the weapons from export controls.
It was a surprising gift to say the least, several officials from the different alliance member states said, and gave rise to some “insane” scenes among the various delegations’ security teams.
“An unusual gift from president Erdoğan at the Nato summit: a Magnum revolver with ammunition, engraved with my name,” the Hungarian prime minister, Péter Magyar, said on X.
The Belgian prime minister, Bart De Wever, only “learned of the exact nature of the gift” after landing in Belgium. “The prime minister was surprised and immediately handed it over to airport police so it could be placed in a secure safe and the matter was handled in accordance with relevant procedures,” an official said on Thursday.
De Wever’s security team also handled the revolvers given to the EU chiefs based in Brussels, Ursula von der Leyen and António Costa, with all the security and protocol-related headaches such an effort brings.
Von der Leyen “expressed her thanks” to Erdoğan for the gift, her spokesperson said, adding that it would be decommissioned and donated to a military museum.
The revolver presented to the Polish president, Karol Nawrocki, also arrived safely, but with the necessary precautions and a previous incident still fresh in everyone’s minds.
In December 2022, Poland’s police chief brought back an anti-tank grenade launcher from Ukraine that he had received as a gift. The device exploded in his office, slightly injuring him and causing extensive damage to the police headquarters in Warsaw.
This time, “it is certain that no one is going to fire it”, an aide to Nawrocki told a local radio station.
Several revolvers, including those belonging to Starmer, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and the Dutch prime minister, Rob Jetten, have for now remained in the Turkish capital.
Depending on the laws in force, transporting firearms is often far from straightforward, especially when they are fully functional.
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Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, took his revolver with him but left the ammunition in Turkey, Canadian officials said. They did not explain why.
The weapon given to the Swedish prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, “will have to be transported to Sweden in accordance with all applicable procedures”, his team said in a statement.
Beyond the logistical challenge, the gift also puzzled several delegations attending the summit, which focused on Ukraine, Iran, and relations with the US president, Donald Trump.
The question asked over and over again: why such a gift? While it is very common for heads of state to exchange various gifts during meetings or summits, such exchanges rarely require these kinds of precautions.
The Turkish presidency did not immediately respond.