Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Mr. Bayraktar, announced the initiation of discussions for a mining collaboration with Somalia. Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Alparslan Bayraktar stated that following the exploration of oil, efforts have begun to cooperate with Somalia in the mining sector as well. Turkey had previously sent a seismic research vessel to search for oil and gas offshore Somalia using its offshore oil exploration fleet. The agreement between the two countries was later expanded to include onshore oil and gas exploration. Bayraktar revealed in a statement on social media platform X that he had met with Somalia’s new Minister of Petroleum and Mining Resources, Mr. Dahir Shire Muhammed, and his delegation in Istanbul. He mentioned that half of the seismic exploration in the three blocks allocated by Somalia to Turkey has been completed, and discussed the future phases of the search operations as well as potential new collaborations for onshore areas. Bayraktar also confirmed the decision to kick off a new partnership process in the field of mining.