{"id":2874,"date":"2026-07-09T15:44:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T15:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/2874\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T15:44:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T15:44:13","slug":"world-leaders-gifted-vintage-revolvers-by-erdogan-after-nato-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/2874\/","title":{"rendered":"World leaders gifted vintage revolvers by Erdogan after NATO summit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Belgium’s prime minister was a little surprised on landing back home from the NATO summit in T\u00fcrkiye to find that he had a handgun and ammunition in his luggage.<\/p>\n

After NATO leaders gathered for Wednesday’s fractious summit in Ankara, their host, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, handed each an unusual parting gift: a vintage revolver, along with live ammunition indicating it was not just for show.<\/p>\n

The gift was supposedly a showcase of Turkiye’s defence industry, which has become a key export and foreign policy tool.<\/p>\n

According to the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey, Turkiye 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.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan used the gift as a nod Turkiye’s defence industry. (Reuters: Yves Herman)<\/p>\n

Turkiye’s modern handgun industry focuses on semi-automatics, making the model gifted to leaders, a collector’s curiosity.<\/p>\n

Turkish gun-makers 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.<\/p>\n

According to the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey, Turkiye 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.<\/p>\n

A collector’s gift bag<\/p>\n

Images shared by the office of Lithuanian President, Gitanas Nauseda showed what is believed to be the Gumusay .357 Magnum, a rare model produced by Turkish arms maker MKE in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

It was set in a wooden display box featuring Turkiye’s flag and the NATO logo.<\/p>\n

Each handgun was monogrammed with the leaders name, alongside a sentimental message engraved onto a placard in the giftbox.<\/p>\n

“Gumusay, the first revolver-type handgun produced in our country.”Leaders react\u00a0<\/p>\n

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”.<\/p>\n

“Certainly no one will be shooting it.”<\/p>\n

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s spokesperson said all the leaders had been given the same model.<\/p>\n

The Belgian premier, Bart De Wever, handed his to Brussels’ airport police to be secured in a safe.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

The model of hand gun which was gifted to leaders is believed to be a collectors item. (Office of the Prime Minister of Belgium via Reuters)<\/p>\n

The offices of the Dutch and Swedish prime ministers said their revolvers had been taken to their respective embassies in Ankara.<\/p>\n

The gun belonging to Dutch prime minister Rob Jetten was due to be disabled, while the Swedish prime minister Ulf Kristersson’s is awaiting import paperwork.<\/p>\n

The gun given to Britain’s Sir Keir Starmer came with a cleaning kit and 500 bullets, a Downing Street source said.<\/p>\n

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s revolver was already stored at the seat of government, the Palazzo Chigi.<\/p>\n

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was intending to donate the gun to a military museum.<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belgium’s prime minister was a little surprised on landing back home from the NATO summit in T\u00fcrkiye to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[14,1861,1862,1860,243,1730,97],"class_list":["post-2874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-defence-industry","tag-firearm","tag-gun","tag-hand-gun","tag-nato","tag-tayyip-erdogan","tag-turkiye"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}