Turkey's Erdogan gives NATO leaders vintage revolver as parting gift — Why? How did they react?

Host Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gifted each NATO leader gathered for Wednesday's summit in Ankara an unusual parting gift: a vintage revolver, along with live ammunition, indicating it was not just for show.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was the first to mention the highly unusual gift Erdogan presented to his guests. He said he and others received a revolver engraved with their name.

Alongside the gun sitting in a red box lined in black were six live rounds and a note exempting the weapons from export controls.

The gun given to Starmer came with a cleaning kit and 500 bullets, a Downing Street source told Reuters.

About the vintage revolver

According to images shared by the office of Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda, the revolver appeared to be the Gumusay .357 Magnum, a rare six-shooter produced by the Turkish arms maker MKE in the 1990s, Reuters reported.

It was set in a wooden display box featuring Turkey's flag and the NATO logo as well as a placard inscribed "Gumusay, the first revolver-type handgun produced in our country" in Turkish and English.

Why did Turkey gift revolvers?

According to a Reuters report, Erdogan wanted to showcase Turkey's defence industry, which has become a key export and foreign policy tool.

Turkey's modern handgun industry focuses mainly on semi-automatics, making the Gumusay something of a collector's curiosity.

Turkish gunmakers have muscled into Europe's civilian firearms market with inexpensive pistols and shotguns, challenging older Italian and Belgian names long associated with higher-priced sporting and service weapons.

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 about $3 billion over the period, behind the United States and Italy.

How did NATO leaders react?

According to a Reuters report, several officials from the different alliance member states said it was a surprising gift to say the least, and gave rise to some "insane" scenes among the various delegations' security teams.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's spokesperson said all the leaders had been given the same model, engraved with their own names. The Belgian premier, Bart De Wever, handed his to Brussels' airport police to be secured in a safe.

An aide to Polish President Karol Nawrocki told Radio RMF FM that his revolver was awaiting customs clearance at Warsaw Airport and would be kept in an appropriate place "so that it is firstly safe and secondly respected as a gift".

"Certainly no one will be shooting it," he added.

The offices of the Dutch and Swedish prime ministers said their revolvers had been take to their respective embassies in Ankara. The Dutch one was due to be disabled while the Swedish one was awaiting import paperwork.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's revolver was already stored at the seat of government, the Palazzo Chigi, along with other state gifts.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was intending to donate hers to a military museum, while the leader of Greece planned to give his to the War Museum in Athens.

(With agency inputs)