If the threat of terrorist attacks in mainland Europe hasn’t already got you uneasy, then the escalation of tensions between Russia and Turkey this week probably has. The world isn’t a particularly nice place to be at the moment and I’m seriously considering putting myself forward for this manned mission to Mars they’ve got coming up.
So with the world falling to bits, here is some more pretty disturbing news.
A large shipment of shotguns without transportation permits has been seized by the Italian police at the Port of Trieste. The 847 Turkish-made Winchester shotguns worth about €500,000 were on their way to Belgium. With Turkey already in the headlines following the downing of a Russian jet, this is not the front page news their government needed.
Gun shipments from Turkey are nothing new in Trieste, but this time the shipment was missing a key document… authorisation for transportation in the EU. Pretty key.
“A major seizure,” the chief prosecutor of Trieste, Carlo Mastelloni, commented, stressing that the Guardia di Finanza (Financial Police) “have done well for encouraging controls in the port, a sensitive area that affects business in the commercial city of Trieste.”
With Italy now intercepting illegal shotguns and neighbours Greece dealing with a massive migrant crisis, the Mediterranean is a pretty volatile area right now. Given the current terror threat in Europe, the seizure in Trieste has drawn “an extremely high level of attention,” said Lieutenant Colonel Gabriel Baron, commander of the Guardia di Finanza in Trieste.
Turkish authorities are yet to respond, despite the Italians accusing the Turkish exporter of unauthorised weapons’ trading. It remains to be seen whether we’ll have another diplomatic incident, but as a supporter of peace and European cooperation, I hope not.
