Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Alparslan Bayraktar, announced Thursday his countrys intention to explore for oil and gas in 3 areas off the Somali coast. This came in a press conference after he attended the signing ceremony of an agreement between Ankara and Mogadishu in Istanbul regarding hydrocarbon exploration and production, with Somali Minister of Oil and Mineral Resources Abdulrazzaq Omar Mohamed. The Turkish Minister explained that his country has become one of the countries that owns the most important fleets of deep-sea exploration ships, and has been able to discover important natural gas resources in the Black Sea thanks to its existing exploration ships. He pointed out that Turkey is not only conducting exploration in its territorial waters, but will also conduct exploration operations on the coasts of several countries, and that the agreement concluded with Somalia is evidence of this. He indicated that a Turkish research ship will head to Somalia for exploration with suppo rt ships at the end of next September. For his part, the Somali Minister of Oil and Mineral Resources said that the concluded agreement would contribute to strengthening relations between the two countries. Source: Qatar News Agency