Mogadishu
On Monday, Somalia’s president thanked Turkey for continuing to support his country’s growth, security, and humanitarian needs.
According to Somalia’s Presidency, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud made the remarks after meeting with Turkish Ambassador to Somalia Ibrahim Mete Yagli in the central town of Dhusamareb and discussing bilateral relations between their two countries, the latest security developments, and other issues of mutual interest.
TurkSom Chief Commander Brig. Gen. Sebahattin Kalkan accompanied Yagli.
Camp TurkSom, in Mogadishu, is Turkey’s largest foreign military camp and training center. It can house approximately 1,500 trainees at a time and has already trained over 5,000 Somali security forces.
“During the meeting, the president commended the distinguished close relations between the two brotherly countries,” Somalia’s Presidency stated on X.
The meeting took place as Mogadishu campaigns to ease Somalia’s arms embargo.
Following the collapse of Somalia’s military rule, the UN Security Council imposed the embargo in early 1992.
Somalia and Turkey have a close economic, diplomatic, and military relationship that has grown since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Somalia in 2011.
Since then, Turkey has built its largest embassy in Africa, an 80,000-square-meter (861,112-square-foot) embassy in Mogadishu.
Turkish humanitarian organizations are also present in the nation and have contributed to the averting of a famine in 2022. For the past two years, Somalia has experienced one of the worst droughts in four decades.
Last month, the Turkish embassy in Mogadishu sponsored a signing ceremony for a joint venture deal to establish a biogas power plant in Mogadishu between a Turkish and Somali enterprise.
According to the embassy, the facility will have a production capacity of 5.6 MW/hour and will provide electricity to about 40,000 houses by the end of 2024.
Somalia also anticipates the establishment of a Ziraat Bank branch in Mogadishu, which will be the country’s first Turkish bank.