Mohammed Dhaysane
Tuesday September 26, 2023
Somalia's president expressed his deep appreciation to Türkiye on Monday for continuing to support his country’s development, security and humanitarian needs.
Hassan Sheikh Mohamud made the remarks after he met with Turkish Ambassador to Somalia Ibrahim Mete Yagli in the central town of Dhusamareb and discussed bilateral relations between their two countries, the latest security developments and other issues of mutual interest, according to Somalia’s Presidency.
Yagli was accompanied by TurkSom Chief Commander Brig. Gen. Sebahattin Kalkan.
Camp TurkSom, located in the capital, Mogadishu, is Türkiye’s largest overseas military base and training facility. It has the capacity to accommodate around 1,500 trainees at a time and has already trained more 5,000 Somali security forces.
“During the meeting, the president commended the distinguished close relations between the two brotherly countries," Somalia’s Presidency said in a statement on X.
The meeting came as Mogadishu is campaigning to lift an arms embargo on Somalia.
The embargo was imposed by the UN Security Council in early 1992 following the collapse of Somalia’s military regime.
Somalia is enjoying a close economic, diplomatic and military friendship with Türkiye that has been growing since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Somalia in 2011.
Since then, Türkiye has built an 80,000-square-meter (861,112-square-foot) embassy in Mogadishu, which is its biggest embassy in Africa.
Turkish humanitarian organizations are also operating in the country and helped avert a famine in 2022. Somalia has witnessed one of the worst droughts in four decades for the last two years.
Last month, the Turkish embassy in Mogadishu hosted a signing ceremony for a joint venture agreement between a Turkish and Somali company to build a biogas power plant in Mogadishu.
The plant will have a production capacity of 5.6 MW/hour, providing energy to around 40,000 homes by the end of 2024, according to the embassy.
Somalia also anticipates the opening of a Ziraat Bank branch in Mogadishu, which will be the first Turkish bank in Somalia.