End of stay in Kinshasa for Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Turkish president left the Congolese capital in the middle of the day, after a 48-hour official visit, during which seven cooperation agreements were signed between Kinshasa and Ankara.
With our correspondent in Kinshasa, Kamanda wa Kamanda Muzembe
Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo personally accompanied Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the airport tarmac. The two personalities shared the same vehicle after their last head-to-head this Monday morning.
This visit of the Turkish President will have made it possible to strengthen the relations of cooperation between the DRC and Turkey. The occasion also gave rise to exchanges on regional and international issues, according to sources from the Congolese presidency.
Kinshasa and Ankara concluded on Sunday seven new agreements in the field of security, transport, health… Agreements which are added to those of cooperation signed in September 2021 in Ankara during the visit to Turkey of President Félix Antoine Tshisekedi .
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These first agreements focus on the promotion and mutual protection of investments, the prevention of double taxation on income and the prevention of tax evasion as well as on tourism.
No press release sanctioned the end of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit. But, in the two camps, one does not hide his satisfaction. From the first day of the visit of the Turkish number one, the Congolese head of state spoke of a win-win cooperation between the two countries.
I would not say that Turkey is becoming one of the pillars of military cooperation in the DRC, but one of the actors who could play a major role, because as soon as he came to power in 2019, President Tshisekedi was received in very high level, in particular by officials and managers of Turkish armaments.
Jean-Jacques Wondo, associate researcher at the Group for Research and Information on Peace (GRIP)
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