Turkey is making great efforts in order to bring assistance to Somalia, which is experiencing recent years’ most acute hunger and drought disaster, and to draw the attention of the international community to this human tragedy. Most recently, at Turkey’s initiative an emergency meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Executive Committee, hosted by Turkey under the umbrella of the OIC, was held in Istanbul on 17 August 2011. Following this meeting, H.E. Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey, visited Somalia on 19 August 2011 accompanied by a delegation which included members of the Council of Ministers.

Taking into account also that the security situation in Mogadishu has improved relatively and with a view to coordinate Turkey’s efforts to enable Somalia to overcome its problems and to resume its development, it was decided to re-open the Turkish Embassy in Mogadishu, where the Embassies of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Libya, Sudan and Yemen are currently present. In this framework, Mr. Cemalettin Kani Torun, who was appointed recently as Turkish Ambassador to Somalia went to Mogadishu by plane yesterday (31 October) accompanied by the Embassy staff in order to coordinate Turkey’s ongoing and future assistance and also to show that we are standing by the Somalian people. As of today (1 November) the Turkish Embassy in Mogadishu is now fully operational