The Turkish government has sent new troops to Turkey’s military base in Qatar, as provided by a joint defence agreement between Ankara and Doha.

The troops will join the Turkey’s soldiers based at the Tariq bin Ziyad military base in southern Doha deployed in 2015, announced on Tuesday Qatar’s defence ministry Khalid bin Mohammad Al Attiyah. The camp, which is Turkey’s first military installation in Middle East, has a capacity of 5.000 soldiers and Ankara plans to increase the number of its forces in Qatar to 3.000, to respect the joint defence agreement signed in 2014 with Doha.

Officially, the cooperation between the Republic of Turkey and Qatar has the goal to fight terrorism and maintaining security in the region. Turkey’s troops will begin military exercises with Qatari Armed Forces to increase joint military capabilities.

Ankara remains a close alley to Doha, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been a major supporter to Qatar when Saudi Arabia and other Arab states attempted to isolate Doha, diplomatically and economically, on June 5.