According to Spanish Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Angel Losada, the international conference on Somalia is scheduled to be held in Istanbul in mid-May.
The Spanish foreign minister said on Tuesday that the conference would also be examining the effects of international assistance to the interim government of Somalia, the Anatolia news agency reported.
Losada also stated that the idea of an international conference on Somalia was first put forward last year by Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Somalia has been beset by unrest since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
In addition, the Somali coast has been infested by piracy in recent years.
Attacks by heavily-armed Somali raiders in speedboats have prompted foreign navies to patrol the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean and to provide escorts for commercial vessels travelling in the area.
MBOMBO IBRAHIM MOUBARAK, an Islamic cleric who runs Cameroon’s Islamic humanitarian-assistance programme, has a dream. “Turkey must reclaim its mantle as leader of the Islamic world,” he said on March 17th, as Abdullah Gul became the first Turkish president to visit Cameroon and Congo. Mr Moubarak believes that Turkey’s brand of moderate Islam, which embraces Western-style democracy and the free market, offers a model for Africa’s Muslims. He sees nothing sinister about the mosques, madrassas and schools built, restored or run by Sunni Turks across the continent.
Mr Gul’s African expedition was more about finding new markets than new converts, which helps to explain the presence of some 140 Turkish businessmen in his entourage. The economic crisis has hit Turkey’s trade with the rest of Europe. So the “Anatolian tigers”—small-and medium-sized entrepreneurs from Turkey’s conservative heartland—are eyeing opportunities in Africa. And Africans are responding with enthusiasm. In Yaoundé your correspondent was approached in the loo of a five-star hotel by a Cameroonian lady saying “I want to sell timber to Turkey.”
The Turks in turn want to sell Africans a range of finished goods, from washing powder to jeans. Turkish contractors are angling to build airports, housing and dams. Turkish Airlines now has regular flights to Addis Ababa, Dakar, Johannesburg, Lagos and Nairobi. Mehmet Buyukeksi, president of Turkey’s exporters’ association, says that Turkish exports to Africa have leapt from $1.5 billion in 2001 to over $10 billion in 2009. “We believe in the future of Africa,” he declares.
Turkey has offered to mediate between Iran and the West in the dispute over Iran's nuclear programme.
The Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, announced the offer after talks with his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki.
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