The Gulf state is also part of the Quintet Group on Somalia, which also includes the United States, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and Türkiye.
Qatar and Somalia have discussed strengthening bilateral cooperation during a preparatory meeting for the inaugural session of their Joint Supreme Committee, held under a previous memorandum of understanding.
In a statement on Wednesday, Doha’s foreign ministry said it was represented by its Director of the Arab Affairs Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nayef bin Abdullah Al-Emadi.
Somalia’s Director of Arab Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Mohamed Hassan Mohamed, represented his country at the meeting. On the same day, Al-Emadi held a separate meeting with Mohamed.
“During the meeting, cooperation relations between the two countries and ways to support and enhance them were reviewed,” the Qatari foreign ministry said, without providing further details on the matter.
In 2018, Qatar and Somalia signed a MoU on the establishment of a joint supreme committee in a move to further boost cooperation between both countries.
The latest meeting came nearly four months after Qatar hosted the Somali Diaspora Conference in July, where efforts to address issues facing Somalia were atop the agenda.
The discussions covered a range of topics, including education, entrepreneurship, culture and identity, youth empowerment, and promoting the return of Somalis and investment in the country.
As a diplomatic heavyweight, Qatar had assumed a major diplomatic role in 2021 during the reconciliation between Kenya and Somalia, which occurred following a dispute that saw the latter accuse Nairobi of interfering in its internal affairs.
Quintet Group
The Gulf state is also part of the Quintet Group on Somalia, which also includes the United States, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and Türkiye.
The group, which held its seventh meeting in Washington last month, is aimed at supporting Somalia’s peace and stability.
During their latest meeting, the Quintet members had reaffirmed their support for “Somalia’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and unity” while stressing the need to address “ongoing and emerging threats from terrorist groups in the Horn of Africa”.
The meeting had also agreed to reconvene in Mogadishu for an eighth meeting, without disclosing further details on the upcoming discussions.
Throughout their past meetings, the group had underlined the need to support Somalia’s fight against the armed group of Al-Shabab.
Meaning ‘The Youth’ in Arabic, Al Shabab first emerged as the extremist youth wing of the now-defunct Union of Islamic Courts in Somalia, which briefly controlled Mogadishu in 2006 before Ethiopian forces drove them out.
Al-Shabab holds connections to other militant groups in Africa, including Boko Haram in Nigeria and Al-Qaeda.
The group seeks to overthrow the central government of Somalia and install its own system of governance based on their own strict application of Islamic law.
Somalia’s government had launched an offensive against Al-Shabab following the deadly attack on a hotel in the capital Mogadishu in August 2022 where 21 people were killed. Qatar condemned the attack at the time.
The fighting across Somalia has led to rising civilian casualties and forced at least 650,000 people to flee the country, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).
