Somalia and Turkey have once again reiterated their commitment to work towards enhancing cooperation on military and national security to boost citizen protection and defense.
This followed talks between Somalia’s chief of Defense Forces Maj. General Dahir Adan Elmi and his Turkish counterpart, Turkey’s chief of Defense forces General Yaşar Güler.
The two Generals met at the Defense headquarters in Ankara, Turkey, approximately a year since the opening of Turkey’s large military training camp in Mogadishu, Somalia.
Bilateral military relations between Somalia and Turkey has been growing from strength to strength in the last few years following close working ties that has seen hundreds of Somali officers graduate from Turkish military colleges.
Other high ranking Somali military officers have also received advanced courses to boost efforts to tackle threats posed by terror groups. During the meeting, Maj. General Dahir Adan commended Turkey for providing capacity building support to Somalia’s defense forces. He termed the trainings significant and timely towards increasing personnel capacities and operations.
On his part, Major Güler assured Somalia of unending military support and cooperation due to the brotherly nature of the relationship between the two nations.
He also acknowledged Somali government’s efforts and promised joint cooperation to enhance the capacity of its forces. The two nations further agreed to foster relations and partner in information sharing in order to increase counterterrorism measures to curb threats.
The meeting was attended by Senior Somali and Turkish Defense personnel. Somalia’s Ambassador to Turkey, Ambassador Jama Abdullahi Mohamed also attended the meeting.
The Military cooperation between the two states can be traced to the 16th Century and has only been getting stronger since then. Maj. General Dahir Adan who is Turkey for an official working visit, later met Defense Minister Gen. Hulusi Akar where they held brief talks.
