Belgium’s prime minister was slightly shocked on touchdown again house from Wednesday’s NATO summit in Turkey to discover that he had a handgun and ammunition in his baggage.
After NATO leaders gathered for Wednesday’s fractious summit in Ankara, their host, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, handed every an uncommon parting gift: a classic revolver, together with stay ammunition indicating it was not only for present.
Erdogan needed to showcase Turkey’s defence business, which has change into a key export and international coverage instrument.
Images shared by the workplace of Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda confirmed what appeared to be the Gumusay .357 Magnum, a uncommon six-shooter produced by Turkish arms maker MKE within the Nineteen Nineties.
It was set in a picket show field that includes Turkey’s flag and the NATO emblem as nicely as a placard inscribed “Gumusay, the first revolver-type handgun produced in our country” in Turkish and English.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s spokesperson mentioned all of the leaders had been given the identical mannequin, engraved with their very own names.
The Belgian premier, Bart De Wever, handed his to Brussels’ airport police to be secured in a secure.
An aide to Polish President Karol Nawrocki advised Radio RMF FM that his revolver was awaiting customs clearance at Warsaw Airport and could be saved in an applicable place “so that it is firstly safe and secondly respected as a gift”.
“Certainly no one will be shooting it,” he added.
The workplaces of the Dutch and Swedish prime ministers mentioned their revolvers had been take to their respective embassies in Ankara. The Dutch one was due to be disabled whereas the Swedish one was awaiting import paperwork.
The gun given to Britain’s Keir Starmer got here with a cleansing equipment and 500 bullets, a Downing Street supply mentioned.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s revolver was already saved on the seat of presidency, the Palazzo Chigi, together with different state presents.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was intending to donate hers to a navy museum, whereas the leader of Greece deliberate to give his to the War Museum in Athens.
Turkey’s fashionable handgun business focuses primarily on semi-automatics, making the Gumusay one thing of a collector’s curiosity.
Turkish gunmakers have muscled into Europe’s civilian firearms market with cheap pistols and shotguns, difficult older Italian and Belgian names lengthy related to higher-priced sporting and repair weapons.
According to the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey, Turkey was the world’s third-largest exporter of small arms between 2019 and 2024, with exports totalling about $3 billion over the interval, behind the United States and Italy.