Overview
- At the Ankara NATO summit on July 7–8, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan presented each attending leader a named revolver, six live rounds and a note asserting an exemption from export controls.
- Delegations reacted with surprise and immediate safety steps: some leaders left the pistols in Turkey, others handed them to airport police, and Keir Starmer said he left his in Ankara because importing it would have been illegal.
- Most of the revolvers remain in Ankara or are held by recipient states’ security services while governments decide logistics, with several planning to render the weapons permanently inoperable or donate them to military museums.
- Officials cite routine national weapons and export laws and past incidents involving gifted weaponry to explain the strict precautions and the protocol and legal questions that the presents raised.
- Commentators called the gesture an unusual diplomatic misstep that embarrassed some leaders and could prompt tighter rules and clearer procedures for handling potentially functional protocol gifts.