MOGADISHU, Somalia – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is set to arrive in Somalia in the coming days, according to multiple sources. An advance team reached Mogadishu to pave the way for Erdogan landmark trip.
On the heels of a landmark accord, brokered by Türkiye, that ended nearly a year of tensions between the two African nations on maritime access to the Red Sea, Erdogan said on Saturday that the breakthrough came after “a meeting that lasted seven hours.”
“Thanks to their cooperation, we signed (the deal) and we finished the job,” Erdogan said at an event with young people in the eastern province of Erzurum.
“We went to our press conference room and announced it to the world. I told them, ‘God willing, I will visit Ethiopia and Somalia in the first two months of next year and we will announce this step we have taken to the world’,” added the Turkish president.
After meeting with Erdogan in the Turkish capital Ankara on Wednesday, the leaders of Somalia and Ethiopia in a joint statement called the Ankara Declaration “reaffirmed their respect and commitment to one another’s sovereignty, unity, independence and territorial integrity.”
Upon a question about Turkiye’s role in the signing of the declaration, Erdogan explained that Ankara’s strong relations with both sides had allowed it to make progress with mediation efforts where others could not.
