Turkey and Mauritania sign training deal at 3rd Turkey-Africa Partnership Summit

By Kaan Bozdogan and Elif Kucuk

ISTANBUL (AA) - Turkey and Mauritania signed an education agreement Friday at the 3rd Turkey-Africa Partnership Summit.

National Education Minister Mahmut Ozer and his Mauritanian counterpart Mohamed Melainine Ould Eyih signed the agreement at the Istanbul Congress Center within the scope of the summit.

Ozer said relations that have developed with African countries in recent years are a success story for Turkish foreign policy.

“The African Opening Policy process has been successfully completed today and rapid progress has been achieved in many areas from trade volume to political dialogue mechanisms, from educational activities to economic investments,” said Ozer.

Noting that Turkey-Mauritania education relations are carried out within the framework of a technical agreement signed in 2005, Ozer said: “The agreements signed in the field of education form the basis of our relations.”

“New agreements will add new perspectives to us and open up areas of cooperation. In this context, I am very pleased to be here to sign the Education Cooperation Agreement, which has been negotiated before and will take our education relations to a further level,” he added.

Meanwhile, a joint membership agreement was signed between Turkey’s national broadcaster
TRT and the African Union of Broadcasting.

More than 100 government ministers and 16 presidents from Africa are attending the summit, whose theme is, “Enhanced Partnership for Common Development and Prosperity."

The first Turkey-Africa Partnership Summit was held in Istanbul, the second in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea and the third at the Istanbul Congress Center in Turkey’s commercial capital.

Under the government’s outreach to Africa policy, Turkey’s engagement with Africa has gained speed in recent years, including President Recep Tayyip’s groundbreaking visits to multiple countries on the continent.

Turkey has said its African policy, which encompasses political, humanitarian, economic and cultural ties, is part of its multidimensional foreign policy and is pursued in the spirit of win-win relations.