Somali's future on the table at ıstanbul conference

The first session of an international meeting discussing Somalia's future before it transitions to an electoral political system has started in Istanbul. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan made remarks at the conference on Friday. The first speeches of the conference were made by Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag, Somali Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali and Augustine Mahiga, special representative of the UN secretary-general for Somalia, on Thursday. The conference is a follow-up meeting that was scheduled during an international London Conference in February to monitor the progress on planned improvements on issues such as the fight against piracy and against corruption during the delivery of international aid, as well as building up a national army to ensure peace in Somalia, which has been a victim of religious extremism and anarchy due to a political vacuum which has caused an ongoing civil war since 1991. In 2010 Turkey signed an agreement to train Somali soldiers at a UN-backed international Somalia summit in Istanbul. Somalia has had transitional administrations for the past seven years, but has not had a functioning central government since 1991, when warlords overthrew a long-time dictator and turned on each other, plunging the nation into chaos. The conference will discuss solutions for a healthy post-transitional period after 21 years. Bozdag, who is in charge of coordinating Turkish aid to famine-struck Somalia, asserted during his opening speech that the way to permanent peace and stability in Somalia was not just through humanitarian aids, but through ensuring a self-sufficient public service system in the country which could work without any foreign aid. Noting that finding a solution to the infrastructural problems of Somalia was a priority for the Istanbul meeting, Bozdag stated that "we will discuss ways to strengthen the resilience of our Somali brothers in the face of new natural disasters in the future during our meetings." A number of working groups on the issues of energy, water, roads and resilience were organized on Thursday with the participation of experts, businessmen, state officials and bureaucrats from Somalia, Turkey and 50 other countries, along with international organizations. The working group meetings were held behind closed doors. Appreciative of Turkey's financially successful commitment to famine and civil war stricken Somalia, Ali claimed the international community "should draw useful parallels from Turkey's example to reach a consensus on Somalia's future." Mahiga stated that for the coming period the main aim was to pave the way for an efficient use of Somali energy and water and to build a business-friendly environment under good governance principles like transparency and accountability.