Leaders were given luxury firearms by the Turkish president following the talks in Ankara.
BRUSSELS — Top European leaders attending a NATO summit in Ankara were given engraved pistols and live ammunition as a leaving gift.
The elaborate firearms — and accompanying bullets and cleaning kit — were presented to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa on Wednesday by the host, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, two EU officials confirmed to POLITICO.
A European Council official added that Costa’s security team took the weapon for checks. “We will follow the Belgian procedures to bring it to Belgium and then we will store it in line with the security requirements imposed by the General Secretariat of the Council,” they said.
A spokesperson for von der Leyen said: “The president expressed her thanks to President Erdoğan for this gesture. The firearm will be securely transported and stored. Once decommissioned, it is the intention of the president to donate the firearm to a military museum.”
However, the top-of-the-range ceremonial pistols are likely to fall foul of strict limits on the value of gifts and are unlikely to be kept personally by the recipients, said one of the officials.
Other European leaders, including outgoing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten, said publicly they would leave their pistols in Turkey to be decommissioned before they are brought home.
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