| Submit your comments on this article |
| Africa Horn |
| Turkey to build a military training center in Somalia |
| 2016-01-07 |
| Turkey has started to build a military training base in Somalia as part of its pledge to build up the national army for the Somali government, a senior Turkish diplomat has said. Emel Tekin, the head of the Foreign Ministry department responsible for Somalia, stated that Turkey is establishing a military base in Mogadishu, a first for Turkey, to train Somali soldiers. She said the initiative is part of a framework agreement between the two countries on military cooperation. “This military training facility will also be an important base for [providing] military training for the entire [continent of] Africa,” she added. Col. Murat Yaman said at the commission meeting that the agreement is a framework deal to boost defense cooperation between the two countries. He noted that it built on two earlier agreements signed with Somalia in 2010 on military financial cooperation and military training. Turkey has been providing defense assistance to Somalia since then to shore up Somalia’s security forces. The Turkish military is also building a military school in Somalia to educate and train both officer corps and noncommissioned officers. Tekin said that, when she visited Somalia, she noticed Somali soldiers were wearing different uniforms and shoes provided by various donor countries from the Gulf and the European Union. “They [Somalis] are trying to overcome this,” she said, by establishing a military structure that is complete and under a single chain of command. Turkey is trying to support this as well,” she explained. Turkey has provided $400 million in aid to Somalia in recent years, according to the Turkish Foreign Ministry. Turkey will be hosting the High-Level Partnership Forum in Turkey in İstanbul on Feb. 23-24, which is a follow-up to the High-Level Meeting on Somalia held in New York on Sept. 28, 2015. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #4 Profits from reselling IS oil. |
| Posted by: Sven the pelter 2016-01-07 10:28 |
| #3 “This military training facility will also be an important base for [providing] military training for the entire [continent of] Africa” Getting squeezed out of Libya? |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2016-01-07 10:24 |
| #2 Check your wallet, besoeker. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2016-01-07 02:45 |
| #1 Turkey has provided $400 million in aid to Somalia in recent years, Awfully thoughtful ek se. With all of their current border challenges, I wonder where Turkey came up with $400 million to spend on such a distant and apparently unrelated security effort ? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2016-01-07 02:43 |