Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gifted the leaders participating in the NATO summit a pistol and its ammunition on Wednesday.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told British journalists on the plane during his return from Ankara to his country that the Turkish president gave each leader a pistol engraved with their name, along with a box of ammunition.

Erdogan attached to his gift a note exempting these weapons from export restrictions.

But Starmer explained that he had to leave the pistol in Turkey because bringing it into the United Kingdom would have been illegal.

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Also on Wednesday, a spokesman for the German government said that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz received a similar pistol with its ammunition.

The spokesman told the German Press Agency (dpa) that the pistol received by Merz was handed over to the German embassy in Ankara, pending the completion of legal import procedures and inclusion in the official gifts collection.

Two European Union officials also confirmed that Erdogan presented the same pistol to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa.