At the close of the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan presented each attending head of state and government with a personalised revolver and live ammunition. The weapon, identified by Lithuanian officials as a rare Gumusay .357 Magnum produced by Turkish manufacturer MKE in the 1990s, was housed in a wooden display box bearing the Turkish flag and NATO logo, with a placard describing it as “the first revolver-type handgun produced in our country.” A note exempted the firearms from Turkish export controls, but the gift immediately confronted recipients with a tangle of national firearms laws and security protocols.

Reactions diverged sharply along legal and logistical lines. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer disclosed that he left the revolver in Turkey because importing it into the United Kingdom would be illegal. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten similarly deposited their weapons at their respective embassies in Ankara, with the Dutch revolver slated for deactivation. Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, who according to his office only learned of the gift’s nature upon landing in Brussels, handed it to airport police for safekeeping. By contrast, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni brought the revolver to Rome, where it was registered at the Palazzo Chigi alongside other state gifts. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney took the weapon but left the ammunition in Turkey; the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are to decommission it, with a museum or military institution as a likely destination. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen expressed thanks and intends to donate the deactivated revolver to a military museum, while Lithuania’s president plans to exhibit it in the presidential palace.

Viewed from Ankara, the gift served as a deliberate showcase of Turkey’s defence industry, which has become a significant export sector and foreign-policy instrument. According to the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey, Turkey was the world’s third-largest exporter of small arms between 2019 and 2024, with exports totalling roughly $3 billion. The Gumusay model, no longer in production, is a collector’s item that underscores Turkey’s historical manufacturing capabilities even as its modern handgun industry focuses on semi-automatic pistols. Turkish officials did not publicly elaborate on the symbolism, but the gesture coincided with a summit agenda dominated by defence spending, Ukraine, and relations with Washington.

Within several delegations, the gift generated what officials described as “insane” scenes among security teams unaccustomed to handling live firearms in diplomatic luggage. In Poland, an aide to President Karol Nawrocki assured that the revolver would be kept safely and “certainly no one will be shooting it,” while recalling a 2022 incident in which a Polish police chief accidentally detonated a gift anti-tank grenade launcher. Italian Green politician Angelo Bonelli seized on the episode to criticise NATO’s rearmament trajectory, arguing that distributing firearms as summit souvenirs symbolised a drift away from peacekeeping. Other leaders, including Sweden’s Ulf Kristersson, are awaiting import paperwork before the weapon can be brought home.

As of now, several revolvers remain in Turkish custody pending legal transfer, while others are being deactivated or prepared for museum display. The Turkish presidency has not issued a formal statement on the rationale behind the gift, and no further official steps have been announced. The episode leaves behind a patchwork of national procedures that highlight the gap between a symbolic gesture of defence-industrial pride and the practical constraints of international arms regulation.