Revolvers for NATO leaders

The Belgian prime minister was a bit surprised when, upon returning home from the NATO summit in Turkey on Wednesday, he discovered he had a gun and ammunition in his luggage.

After NATO leaders gathered for a tumultuous summit in Ankara, their host, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, presented each with an unusual parting gift: an antique revolver, complete with live ammunition, showing that it was more than just a decorative item.

Erdogan wanted to showcase Turkey's defense industry, which has become an important export and foreign policy instrument.

Photos released by the office of Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda showed what appeared to be a Gumusay.357 Magnum, a rare six-shot revolver manufactured in the 1990s by the Turkish company MKE.

It was placed in a wooden display case, with the Turkish flag and NATO logo, as well as a plaque that read in Turkish and English: “Gumusay, the first revolver pistol produced in our country.”

A spokesman for Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said that all leaders received the same model, with their own names engraved.

Belgian Prime Minister Bart de Wever handed over his revolver to police at Brussels airport to be kept in a safe.

An aide to Polish President Karol Nawrocki told Radio RMF FM that his revolver is awaiting customs clearance at the Warsaw airport and will be kept in a suitable place, "so that it is, first of all, safe, and secondly, respected as a gift."

"Of course, no one will shoot it," he added.

The offices of the Dutch and Swedish prime ministers announced that their revolvers had been taken to their embassies in Ankara. The Dutch revolver was to be deactivated, while the Swedish one was awaiting import documentation.

The gun given to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer arrived with a cleaning kit and 500 rounds, a Downing Street source said.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni's revolver was already stored in the government's headquarters, Chigi Palace, along with other state gifts.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen intended to donate her copy to a military museum, while the Greek leader planned to give his to the War Museum in Athens.

The modern Turkish short-arms industry is mainly focused on semi-automatic pistols, which is why the Gumusay is a collector's item of sorts.

Turkish arms manufacturers have broken into the European civilian firearms market with inexpensive pistols and shotguns, posing a challenge to older Italian and Belgian names long associated with more expensive sporting and service weapons.

According to the Geneva Survey on Small Arms, Turkey was the world's third largest exporter of small arms between 2019 and 2024, with exports worth around three billion dollars during that period, behind the US and Italy.