When Western heads of state and senior leaders gathered in Ankara, Turkey for a high-stakes NATO summit focused on mounting global security threats, few could have predicted the most talked-about takeaway from the event would be a personalized engraved revolver and six rounds of ammunition, gifted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The unusual gesture was crafted as a deliberate showcase of Turkey’s rapidly expanding domestic defense industry, a sector that has undergone a dramatic transformation in recent decades. Once heavily reliant on imported military hardware, Turkey has emerged as a self-sufficient producer of advanced defense technologies, from combat drones and naval warships to an in-development next-generation domestic fighter jet. The revolvers distributed to attendees were identified by Turkish media as Gumusay .357 Magnum six-shot models manufactured by MKE, Turkey’s state-owned arms producer. Alongside the firearm, summit guests also received a more traditional souvenir: a copy of Erdogan’s biography, *The Politics of Courage: Erdogan and the Rise of Türkiye*.
While the gift landed with little domestic controversy — gun culture has long been deeply embedded in Turkish public life — it immediately left alliance officials scrambling to navigate conflicting national firearms regulations, triggering a wave of unexpected logistical challenges. Many leaders were forced to abandon the souvenir entirely, while others arranged for immediate decommissioning or museum donation to comply with their home countries’ strict gun laws.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney joked to reporters that his own planned gift of maple syrup paled in comparison to Erdogan’s offering, noting that the revolver had already been turned over to Canadian law enforcement. “I would like to reassure Canadians, they keep guns away from me,” Carney said.
Hungary’s newly inaugurated Prime Minister Péter Magyar was one of the first leaders to publicly confirm the unusual gift, posting a photograph of the name-engraved revolver and its display box on the social platform X. It remains unclear what Magyar ultimately did with the firearm after leaving the summit.
For Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, a spokesperson confirmed the leader thanked Erdogan for the gesture before arranging for the gun to be deactivated and donated to a military museum. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told reporters his gift came with a note that waived domestic export restrictions, but he still opted to leave the revolver in Turkey for decommissioning, as importing a personal firearm would violate United Kingdom law.
Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever turned his revolver over to airport police immediately upon returning home, officials confirmed. The firearms gifted to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten remain at their respective national embassies in Ankara, where they are set to be permanently deactivated. In Italy, the revolver delivered to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has been formally logged as an official state gift at Palazzo Chigi, the prime minister’s official residence. Greek officials announced their country’s revolver will be donated to the national War Museum, while Croatian authorities plan to hand their country’s firearm over to a police museum.
Croatian President Zoran Milanović made light of the situation, telling reporters he did not even learn he had received the gift until he returned home from the summit. “I didn’t take it. I shoot from different weapons,” Milanović said, referencing his own approach to politics.
The White House has not yet issued any public comment on whether U.S. representatives at the summit received the same gift, or what became of it if it was distributed. Erdogan’s own office has also not released any formal statement addressing the unusual gifting choice.
Within Turkey, the gesture drew little public pushback, but gun control advocates have pointed to the gift as a stark contrast to the country’s growing public safety crisis. Umut Vakfi, a leading Turkish gun control advocacy foundation, reports that armed violence incidents reached alarming levels last year, with more than 2,700 recorded attacks across the country of 86 million people.