Turkish President Visits War-Torn Somalia
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in war-torn Somalia on Sunday amid tight security, a rare visit by a foreign leader to the war-torn nation.
Hundreds of soldiers and police officers had shut down much of the capital's streets, where on Thursday five people were killed in a suicide attack on a hotel housing the Turkish delegation in Mogadishu.
Somalia's al-Qaida-affiliated Shebab rebels -- who are fighting to overthrow the country's internationally-backed government -- said they carried out the bombing, the latest in a string of attacks by the group against high-profile targets in Mogadishu.
Erdogan praised the "major developments" seen in Somalia, after he was welcomed at the new Turkish-renovated airport by his counterpart, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.
Turkey is a major investor in Somalia, including carrying out a series of major construction projects in a city left devastated by over two decades of war, and now undergoing a major building boom.
- 'Turkey did not hold back' -
Mohamud praised Turkey's "prominent, exemplary role" in Somalia, where unlike most nations, Turkish citizens live and work outside heavily fortified compounds.
"Turkey did not hold back, waiting for stability before it invested. Instead, it invested to achieve it," Mohamud said.
"Where other international partners chose to plan their interventions from elsewhere, Turkey put its people on the ground in Somalia."
Erdogan last visited Mogadishu in 2011 as the then prime minister, the second major leader to visit the city in years, a few months after Uganda's Yoweri Museveni.
He remains one of the most high profile visitors to Mogadishu.
Erdogan had originally planned to visit Mogadishu on Friday, but postponed the trip to attend the funeral of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah.
The visit to Somalia ends Erdogan's Horn of Africa tour, which has included visits to Ethiopia and Djibouti, a key port on the Gulf of Aden and the entrance to the Red Sea.
Both countries contribute troops to the more than 20,000-strong African Union force in Somalia, which is battling the Shebab.
Shebab fighters have in the past three years lost swathes of territory and towns to the AU force and Somali government troops, and their leader was killed in a U.S. air strike in September.
But they still remain a potent threat.
The Somali government, which took power in August 2012, was the first to be given global recognition since the collapse of Siad Barre's hardline regime in 1991.
Billions in foreign aid has been poured in, with the government initially hailed as offering the best chance for peace in a generation.
But, like its predecessors, it has since become mired in political in-fighting and corruption.
Source: Agence France Presse
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