For the past three decades, The Gambia and Turkey’s defense and security relations exhibited tremendous growth under the defense cooperation agreement with Turkey on military training and education. This agreement was proposed during the visit of the then Gambian President, Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara, to Turkey in the summer of 1989. The agreement, signed in 1990, entailed decisions to facilitate defense cooperation on military training and education.

Within the framework of the Defence Cooperation Agreement, under the Military Financial Cooperation Agreement and the Implementation Protocol regarding the Financial Assistance and its Procedural Arrangement between the Republic of Turkey and The Gambia, the Republic of Turkey has continued to provide substantial Military resource allocation for the procurement of military goods and services for The Gambia.

The Gambia’s thriving defense sector has also been a customer of Turkey’s defense industry over the years, driven by the need to renew its military inventory and the military hardware needed to fulfill its mandate for a quota expansion in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions

The opening of the office of the Defense Attaché of The Gambia Armed Forces in Ankara in 2017 was pitched towards strengthening bilateral ties between the two governments.