ANKARA, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Turkey opened its biggest overseas military base on Saturday in Somalia's capital to cement bilateral ties and build a presence in East Africa, Turkey military source said.
More than 10,000 Somali soldiers will be trained by Turkish officers at the base, a senior Turkish official said.
The opening of the military base signals ever-closer ties between Turkey and Somalia.
Turkey's relations with the Horn of Africa date back to the Ottoman Empire, but President Tayyip Erdogan's government has become a close ally of the Somali government in recent years.
"It is a country where Turkey could make a difference without necessarily having to compete with regional or global powers," said Sinan Ulgen, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
