Turkey approves two-year military deployment to Somalia

ANKARA, Turkey 

Turkey’s parliament on Saturday approved a motion to deploy its armed forces to Somalia,  including to the country’s territorial waters.

The two-year operation aims to support Mogadishu’s counterterrorism operations and comes months after the two countries signed a defence and economic cooperation deal.

Al Qaeda-linked Al Shabaab has been waging an insurgency against the Somali government since 2006 in a bid to establish to establish a fundamentalist Islamic state.

Turkey has been providing training, assistance, and advisory support to Somalia for more than 10 years, working to restructure its defence and security forces.

But Turkish officials say economic challenges have prevented Somali armed forces from being fully effective.

Earlier this month, Ankara said it will send an exploration vessel off the coast of Somalia later this year to search for oil and gas as part of a hydrocarbon cooperation deal between two countries.