The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ahmed Essa Awad, repudiates rampant rumours purporting that Somalia, on the behest of its military and economy financiers – Turkey and Qatar – is sending troops to Libya to ‘return peace to the country’.
Mr Awad, in an interview with the BBC Somali Service, Wednesday, denied that neither Somali army officers presently being trained by Doha nor select units from the Somalia army in the country were to be sent over to Libya to support the Turkey/Qatar-backed Libyan government routed out form places such as Tirsit.
He said Somalia has been approached by neither Turkey nor Qatar nor both to send troops to Libya to support the beleaguered government there.
‘Somalia troops are not mercenaries the same as other rumoured troops in that country. We do not have mercenaries (to send over),” he said.
Turkey, maintains the largest military base in Africa in Mogadishu churning out batch after batch of trained military troops and officers on a regular basis.
Both Turkey and Qatar have a vice grip on Somalia leadership as both bankroll more than a dozen programmes each in the country including training and intelligence.
