Leaders attending this week’s NATO summit in Turkey returned home with an unexpected diplomatic gift from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, an engraved revolver accompanied by six rounds of ammunition.
While the presentation was widely seen as a display of Turkey’s growing defence manufacturing capabilities, the gifts have created legal and practical challenges for several visiting leaders because of strict firearms regulations in their home countries.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the revolver had been handed directly to police upon his return to comply with Canadian law.
Speaking to reporters, Carney joked that his own diplomatic gift of maple syrup seemed modest by comparison, adding that Canadians could be reassured that firearms would remain well away from him.
Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar shared a photograph on social media showing a Magnum revolver engraved with his name alongside six cartridges. However, he did not indicate what would ultimately happen to the firearm.
The office of Ursula von der Leyen confirmed that the revolver presented to her would be permanently deactivated before being transferred to a military museum.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the gift package included paperwork intended to ease export procedures. Nevertheless, the revolver was left behind because bringing it into the United Kingdom would breach British firearms legislation.
Officials said it would also be decommissioned.
Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever handed his revolver to airport police after arriving home.
Meanwhile, officials confirmed that the firearms presented to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten remained at their respective embassies in Ankara, where arrangements are being made for them to be taken out of service.
Jetten described the gift as unlike any diplomatic present he had previously received.
Comparing it with the stroopwafels distributed during the NATO summit in The Hague, he suggested the revolver reflected Turkey’s intention to promote its increasingly sophisticated defence sector.
Croatian President Zoran Milanović said he only became aware of the gift after returning home. His office said the firearm would most likely be donated to a police museum.
Milanović also joked that he preferred using different kinds of weapons, referring to his political style rather than firearms.
Neither the White House nor Erdogan’s office immediately commented on the diplomatic gifts.
Turkish media identified the firearm as the Gumusay. 357 Magnum, a vintage six-shot revolver manufactured by the state-owned defence company MKE.
According to Turkish reports, the presentation was intended to highlight the country’s expanding defence industry, which has shifted over recent years from dependence on foreign military suppliers to producing advanced military equipment, including armed drones, naval vessels and a next-generation fighter aircraft currently under development.
Although gun ownership has long formed part of Turkish culture and attracted little domestic criticism, campaign group Umut Vakfi says armed violence remains a significant concern.
The organisation recorded more than 2,700 gun-related incidents across the country last year.
Alongside the revolver, summit participants also received a copy of Erdogan’s biography, The Politics of Courage: Erdogan and the Rise of Türkiye, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency.
