Turkey helps Somalia for not its own interests

ISTANBUL - Anatolia News Agency

A Somali refugee woman carries her child outside the refugee camp in this file photo. REUTERS photo

Turkey does not see Somalia as an area to serve its own interests or as a security threat, but as a place where the human conscience will be tested, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has said.

Davutoğlu participated in a meeting of Somalian civil society groups in Istanbul held ahead of the 2nd Istanbul Somalia Conference, scheduled for May 31-June 1. Somalia has become one of the most important issues in Turkey’s foreign policy because there are deep-rooted ties between the two countries, he said. “Somalia is not a faraway place for us, it is the epicenter of honor and civilization.”

“Turkey has assumed great leadership in every initiative for Somalia since Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited the country in August 2011,” Davutoğlu said, adding that Turkey has opened an embassy in Somalia, and Turkish Airlines (THY) has begun offering flight services to Mogadishu. “While the whole world was watching Somalia from the outside, Turkey sent its senior diplomats and its most effective civil society and aid organizations [there],” Davutoğlu said. “We share a common fate with Somalia. We don’t see Somalia as a field of interest and risk or a security threat. We see Somalia as place where the conscience of man will be tested, and because of this we continue to help them with all our efforts.”