KINSHASA — Security
and economic issues will be at the heart of the official visit of Turkish
President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan who visits the Democratic Republic of
Congo on Sunday, the Congolese presidency said.
اضافة اعلان
President
Felix Tshisekedi is due to meet
with his Turkish counterpart, who will be backed by "a strong
delegation" of government members and businessmen from Turkey, said a
press release from the Congolese presidency.
Erdogan's African tour, from February 20 to
23, will move on to Senegal and Guinea-Bissau.
His two-day DRC trip is intended to
help Ankara and Kinshasa to strengthen cooperation in the political, economic
and security fields, the presidency added.
It "follows the bilateral meetings held
between the two heads of state" in September in
Ankara and December in
Istanbul.
Last September, Tshisekedi paid an official
visit to Ankara and then traveled to Istanbul in December where he took part in
a Turkey-Africa summit.
Relations between Ankara and Kinshasa have
been good for several years and the volume of Turkish investments in the
DRC continues to grow.
Bilateral trade between the two amounts to
about 40 million dollars but Turkey is seeking to strengthen its presence in
Africa. Since 2003, the volume of its trade with the continent has increased
from two billion dollars to at least 25 billion dollars.
Erdogan has visited Africa nearly 40 times
since 2005, as prime minister and president, since then
Turkey has opened some
40 embassies on the continent.
Turkey's influence covers the realm of
defense with Ankara inaugurating its first African military base in 2017 in
Somalia.
The DRC faces insecurity in its eastern
region due to the presence of dozens of armed groups that regularly threaten
civilians.
Military operations are underway against
these groups which include the
Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), Daesh’s branch
in Central Africa blamed for thousands of killings in the eastern DRC.
Read more Region and World
.jpg)
.jpg)
