Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan exchanged gifts in Budapest on Monday, December 18.

Orban gifted the Turkish president a black horse, while Erdogan gifted Orban an electric car from a Turkish manufacturer.

Erdogan paid a one-day visit to Hungary meeting Orban and Hungarian President Katalin Novak, reaffirming close ties between the two countries.

The meeting comes at a time when Sweden is waiting for its NATO application to be approved by both countries' parliaments.

A Turkish parliament commission put off a vote on Sweden's NATO membership bid in November, again holding up expansion of the Western bloc after 18 months of delays that frustrated some allies and extracted some concessions.

After longtime non-alignment, Sweden applied to join NATO to bolster its security in response to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but has been left waiting due to resistance from alliance states Turkey and Hungary. (Reuters)

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