Erdogan Gives NATO Leaders Pistols Bearing Their Names, Starmer Has Trouble Bringing It to Britain

Symbolic gifts for participants at leaders’ summits are common, but what Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan chose for the NATO summit in Ankara has drawn attention and caused surprise.

European media report that each NATO leader was given a personalized pistol engraved with his name, along with a box of real bullets.

The issue was made public by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who commented on it during the return trip from the summit. He explained that the weapon could not be taken with him to Britain, because importing it would be illegal under British law.

Although Erdogan had provided a personal letter removing restrictions on exporting the weapon from Turkey, Starmer’s pistol will remain in Ankara and is expected to be decommissioned.

The head of the British government described the gift as an unusual choice by the Turkish president. So far, it is not clear whether other NATO leaders have encountered the same problem in transporting this gift.

Alongside the pistol, the leaders were also given more traditional gifts. Among them was the book “The Politics of Courage: Erdogan and the Rise of Turkey,” a luxuriously bound edition, as well as a notepad and a pen bearing each leader’s name.