Postage stamp of PM Modi issued by Turkey government is viral with misleading claim

The Turkish government issued a commemorative postage stamp for all leaders who attended the G20 Antalya Summit in Turkey in 2015. Turkish government has not issued a postal stamp in gratitude to Prime Minister Modi for his assistance during the recent earthquake

An image went viral on social media, claiming that the Turkish government has issued a special postage stamp featuring Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. According to the post, Turkey issued this stamp as a token of gratitude for India’s prompt assistance following the recent earthquake.

Apart from the image of PM Modi, the stamp also bears an image of the Indian national flag. “Narendra Modi Prime Minister of the Republic of India” is written at the bottom of the stamp. The caption of the post reads “Turkey, islamic country issued a stamp on Indian PM as a mark of gratitude for the timely help rendered after recent earthquake”.

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However, when we investigated, we found that the claim was misleading.

Let’s check the truth.

Fact check

We began our investigation by performing a reverse image search on Google and searching keywords related to this image, which led us to a report published on The Economic Times dated 18 November,  2015, stating that Turkey issued a personalised postage stamp featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi to commemorate the G20 Leaders Summit in 2015. According to the report, all 33 leaders who attended the summit were also given personalised stamps.

According to the report, the personalised stamp was presented not just to PM Modi, but for a total of 33 leaders who had attended the summit. PM Modi attended the summit on November 15 and 16, 2015.

On 18 November 2015, G20 Turkey also posted this news from its official Twitter account, in this tweet it is written that President Erdoğan has released a special stamp collection featuring all the world leaders participating in #G20AntalyaSummit.

In further search we found an article published in Business Today states: “In all, 33 stamps, including the leaders of the 19 biggest and most powerful economies of the world and the European Union, were issued.” The honor was given to all world leaders attending the G20 (2015), including the then US President Barack Obama, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with other global leaders.

More information on Turkey’s special G20 Antalya Summit stamps can be found here.

Conclusion

Fact crescendo discovered that the Turkish government has not issued a postal stamp in gratitude to Prime Minister Modi for his assistance during the recent earthquake. The Turkish government issued a commemorative postage stamp for all leaders who attended the G20 Antalya Summit in Turkey in 2015.