Somalia Invites Turkey to Explore Oil in Its Maritime Waters

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that Somalia has invited Turkey to carry out oil exploration activities in its territorial waters, as reported by ermenihaber.

During an interview with reporters after returning from a conference in Berlin regarding Libya, the Turkish president specifically stated: "At this moment we have an offer from Somalia. They are telling us, 'There is oil in our waters. You are doing this in Libya; you can also do the same with us.'"

Erdogan reminded that in the past, Turkey neither had seismic research vessels nor drilling ships. "People (in the past) came to us, saying there is oil in the Black Sea and offering to conduct exploration activities. If they found it, they would extract 50%, and we would extract 50%. They didn’t find anything. I wish they had found something, and we would have started working in that field back then. However, in the end, it turned out that we became the owners of the land. Now we have 2 drilling vessels and 2 seismic survey vessels. The world continues to want to rent those vessels," said the Turkish president.