Hiiraan Online
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Istanbul, Turkey (HOL) - A total of 110 Somali military personnel have ended a military training course in Turkey and are expected to return home in the next few days.
The training program for the Somali soldiers was part of the bilateral military cooperation pact between the federal government of Somalia and the Turkish government.
The commander of Turkish infantry Colonel Nihat Aksüt who addressed the Somali soldiers at their graduation ceremony in Istanbul on Monday said that the training of the Somali military personnel was a sign for the age-old relations between both countries.
Colonel Nihat Aksüt praised the soldiers for their commitment during the training sessions during the past ten months.
The Somali ambassador to Turkey Mursal Sheik Abdirahman thanked the government and the people of Turkey for their constant support for Somalia to emerge from decades of civil wars and lawlessness.
Turkey has been Somalia’s biggest donor since 2011, when the Turkish Prime Minister Racep Tayyib Erdogan paid a surprise visit to the capital Mogadishu in a bid to draw the world’s attention to Somalia which was experiencing the worst droughts for decades.
HOL English News Desk