BRUSSELS: What does a world leader do with a gun and six bullets? That was the conundrum Nato leaders faced after the Turkish president offered them each a revolver after the Ankara summit.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was the first on Wednesday to mention the highly unusual gift presented by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to his guests. On the flight back from Ankara — where Nato leaders had gathered for two days — Starmer said he and others received a revolver engraved with their name.

Alongside the gun sitting in a red box lined in black were six live rounds and a note exempting the weapons from export controls. It was a surprising gift to say the least, several officials from the different alliance member states said, and gave rise to some “insane” scenes among the various delegations’ security teams.

“An unusual gift from President Erdogan at the Nato summit: a Magnum revolver with ammunition, engraved with my name,” Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar said on X.

Some leaders discovered their gift much later. Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever only “learned of the exact nature of the gift” after landing in Belgium.

“The prime minister was surprised and immediately handed it over to airport police so it could be placed in a secure safe and the matter was handled in accordance with relevant procedures,” an official said on Thursday.

De Wever’s security team also handled the revolvers given to EU chiefs based in Brussels, Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa, with all the security and protocol-related headaches such an effort brings.

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2026