Relations between Turkey and Somalia have a history dating back to the Ottoman Empire.

Turkish Embassy in Mogadishu was inaugurated in 1979, closed in 1991 due to civil war and reopened on 1 November 2011. On 1 June 2014, Turkish Consulate General in Hargeisa started its operations.

Although Turkish Embassy in Mogadishu was closed in 1991, Turkey did not remain indifferent to the developments in the country, and tried to contribute to the establishment of peace and stability in Somalia.

In order to draw the attention of the international community to the great drought disaster in 2011 and to show our solidarity with the Somali people, President of the Republic of Turkey H.E. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, then Prime Minister, made a historic visit to Somalia in August 2011.

Following this visit, Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency, Turkish Red Crescent and Turkish non-governmental organizations conducted Turkey's largest international aid operation. Since then, Turkish humanitarian and technical development assistance to Somalia exceeded 1 billion US Dollars. In this context, development projects in various areas such as health, education, municipal services and infrastructure have been completed.

President Erdoğan visited Somalia twice in 2015 and 2016. During his visit in 2016, Turkey’s largest Embassy Complex in the world was inaugurated officially in Mogadishu.

President of the Federal Republic of Somalia H.E. Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed (Farmajo) conducted a state visit to Turkey on 26 April 2017 and attended on 26 April 2018 to the Turkey-Africa Agriculture Ministers Conference held in Antalya and to the Agriculture Business Forum.

President Farmajo also;

- Attended the OIC Extraordinary Al-Quds Summit held on 12-13 December 2017 in İstanbul.

- Attended the oath-taking ceremony of the President of the Republic of Turkey, H.E. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on 9 July 2018.

- Paid a working visit to Turkey on 23 November 2018 and met with President Erdoğan in Istanbul.

Lastly, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Somalia paid an official visit to Turkey on 26-27 November 2019.

Since 2013, Turkey has assumed a facilitating role in the talks between the Federal Government of Somalia and Somaliland Administration. This process has been carried out by Ambassador Olgan Bekar, Special Envoy of Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey for the Somali-Somaliland Talks.

Our bilateral trade volume with Somalia was 187,3 million US Dollars in 2018 and 250,850 million USD in 2019.

The total value of Turkish investments in Somalia has reached 100 million US Dollars. Mogadishu International Airport and Mogadishu Sea Port are run by Turkish companies in Somalia.

Since 1992, 1,092 Somali students have received Turkish higher education scholarships. The number of Scholarships allocated to Somalia during the 2019-2020 academic year is 98.