Starmer left it… What is Erdogan’s strange gift to NATO leaders? | news

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer revealed that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan presented the leaders of countries participating in the NATO summit hosted by Ankara with personal pistols engraved with the names of their owners, accompanied by boxes of live ammunition.

Speaking to reporters on the plane during his return to the United Kingdom, Starmer said that Erdogan presented each participating leader with a Turkish-style pistol engraved with his name, along with a box of ammunition, adding that the Turkish president attached the gift to a personally signed memorandum exempting the weapon from Turkish export restrictions.

The British Prime Minister explained that he was unable to bring the gift into his country due to strict British legislation related to the possession and import of firearms, which forced him to leave the gun in Turkey to invalidate it, despite the special Turkish exemption attached to the gift.

It is noteworthy that the situation faced by Starmer is specifically related to the British Firearms Act, which imposes strict restrictions on the import and possession of handguns by individuals, since the Dunblane massacre in 1996 led to the tightening of firearms laws.

It was not immediately clear whether other leaders in the alliance faced similar legal obstacles when transporting gifts to their countries, while reports stated that the German authorities treated the pistol allocated to the German Chancellor as an official gift to the state, and it was referred to the German embassy in Ankara to complete its import procedures in accordance with the applicable legal frameworks.

The gift came on the sidelines of the NATO summit, which was held in the Turkish capital on July 7 and 8, 2026, and witnessed extensive discussions on enhancing defense spending by member states, support for Ukraine, and the future of military cooperation within the alliance, as well as files related to the Turkish defense industries and arms sales.

The Turkish move is seen as a symbolic gesture that reflects the broad boom in the defense industries sector in Türkiye.