Turkey is playing a long, multidimensional game in Somalia and elsewhere in the Horn of Africa as part of its regional and global strategy, and the Republic of Somaliland will not change it.
By Barin Kayaoglu
Despite drawing harsh reactions from the Republic of Somaliland, Turkey’s growing military presence in Somalia is unlikely to lead to regional confrontation.
On July 27, Turkey’s parliament approved a mandate to allow the Turkish armed forces to send naval forces to Somali forces for two years. Prior to the approval of the mandate at the Turkish parliament, Somaliland warned Turkey against deploying its naval forces to the waters between Somaliland and Somalia.
However, Turkey’s naval presence in Somalia is unlikely to cause conflict because Ankara has maintained a substantial military contingent in the Horn of Africa nation since the early 2010s. And while Somaliland does not have the military means to oppose Turkey, the latter does not intend to infringe on Somaliland’s internal affairs anyway.
Since Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan first visited Somalia in 2011, Ankara has increased its involvement in the Horn of Africa country. Turkey first provided food and medical aid to the famine-stricken nation and then expanded its footprint by opening its largest military training facility overseas (TURKSOM) in the Somali capital, Mogadishu in 2017.
In February, Ankara and Mogadishu signed the Defense and Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, which expands the two countries’ cooperation into new areas, including Turkish support for the formation of a Somali navy. An energy deal in March granted Turkey the right to prospect for oil and gas off the Somali coast. These deals came in the aftermath of the Republic of Somaliland inking a deal with neighboring landlocked Ethiopia in which the former would lease territory and port facilities to the latter in return for diplomatic recognition. Somaliland strives for independence.
Still, Turkey’s increasing involvement in Somalia is unlikely to lead to conflict. In fact, the mandate reflects Ankara’s multidimensional approach to the Horn of Africa and the region’s place in Turkey’s regional and global outlook.
Somalia as regional, global cornerstone for Turkey
Somalia features centrally in Turkey’s efforts to gain primacy at the crossroads of Africa, Asia, and Europe.
In an article for the Ankara-based think tank Strasam earlier this year, Esat Arslan, a retired Turkish brigadier general, historian, and commentator, argued that Somalia’s status as a littoral to the Gulf of Aden and proximity to the Bab el-Mandeb Straits and the Red Sea make it even more critical for a global commercial power like Turkey.
“Along with the Turkish army base in Qatar, Turkey’s military presence in the cornerstone country of Somalia constitutes a forward defense strategy,” he told Al-Monitor.
At the TURKSOM base in Mogadishu, the Turkish military graduated more than 400 officers and 400 non-commissioned officers and trained the equivalent of 10 infantry battalions.
“These cadres will constitute the future security of Somalia,” Arslan said.
Several hundred Somali soldiers have also received additional commando and drone training in Turkey, according to Turkish media outlets.
In a way, by helping the federal government of Somalia to build an army and now a navy, Turkey is replicating its own experiences. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the Turkish military played a critical role in reforming the Ottoman imperial state and then creating new state institutions — schools, universities, hospitals, veterinary clinics, banks, and industries — in a process that accelerated with the founding of the Republic of Turkey after World War I.
Somali Perceptions of Turkey
To strengthen the military pillar of its Somalia policy, the Turkish government has supported Turkish and Somali investments in infrastructure, health care, education, agriculture, and animal husbandry and offered scholarships to thousands of young Somalis to study in Turkey.
Abdurahman Warsame, a Somali journalist who also covers Tukey-Somalia ties, underlines how the ties have evolved in recent years.
“When Erdogan had visited Mogadishu in 2011, there were barely any Turks in Somalia and barely any Somalis speaking Turkish,” he told Al-Monitor. “Today, many Turkish professionals are active in Mogadishu and other parts of Somalia, while wealthy Somalis from the country and the diaspora prefer to visit Turkey and have their children live and study there.
Warsame argued that Turkey is “appreciated” and that Somalis have “positive feelings” toward the Turks because of their military and civilian contributions while not getting into conflicts with the locals or other international entities.
“Those positive feelings are visible in the north as well, including in Somaliland and Puntland,” he added. “Turkish officials often call their actions ‘charity,’ but there is already brisk trade going on between the two countries, and that will expand considerably in the near future.”
Turkey-Somalia trade was virtually nonexistent in the early 2010s but reached $424 million in 2023 (almost all Turkish exports), according to figures from the Turkish Trade Ministry.
Diplomatic angle
Turkey-Somalia ties do not operate in a bilateral environment. The two sides must also contend with Somalia’s complicated domestic and regional politics.
Besides the three-way disagreements among Mogadishu, Puntland, and Somaliland over territory and sovereignty, Somalia faces threats from Al-Shabaab and a polarized political space with a myriad of clans and political factions.
Turkey recently initiated a three-party dialogue process to overcome the differences between Somalia and Ethiopia. It is especially important for Ankara to avoid friction with Addis Ababa because an Ethiopian-led African Union task force keeps Al-Shabaab at bay (though many Somalis feel Ethiopia’s main interest is to keep their country weak and divided).
The second round of the Turkish-Ethiopian-Somali talks will be held in Ankara in September, and Turkey hopes that an agreement between the federal government of Somalia and Ethiopia that maintains the former’s territorial integrity grants benefits to Somaliland short of independence, and allows Addis Ababa access to the sea would benefit all parties, thus lessening tensions.
In addition to keeping Ethiopia on board as a stakeholder, Turkey continues to engage other regional countries, such as Djibouti, with which it signed a military training agreement in February.
Meanwhile, Turkish officials and analysts who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity pointed out that the UAE, the other major extra-regional player in the Horn of Africa, has so far remained silent on Turkey’s energy exploration plans as well as its mediation efforts between Mogadishu and Addis Ababa. Turkey-UAE ties were frosty for much of the 2010s, but their recent rapprochement has supercharged the two countries’ trade and defense industry cooperation in just a few years.
All foreign policy is local
Surprisingly, Turkey’s domestic politics are proving almost as quarrelsome as Somalia’s internal or international affairs. Turkish opposition parties have voiced concerns about the plans for a Somali naval buildup and energy exploration.
During the parliamentary discussions on the mandate last week, Namik Tan, a lawmaker from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and Turkey’s former ambassador to Israel and the United States, criticized the Erdogan administration.
“If this mandate passes, Turkish Naval Forces will be deployed in a ring of fire that is Somalia,” he told the floor.
He added that the lives of Turkish soldiers “will be irresponsibly endangered in Somalia, which is experiencing a civil war in the grip of terrorism, has tense relations with Ethiopia, has intense piracy activities in its territorial waters, and is face-to-face with another conflict zone, Yemen.”
Tan added that Somalia had almost the same territorial size as Turkey and that even if all Turkish naval assets were to be deployed there, it would be hard to protect Somali waters. “Our noble military’s fundamental duty is protecting the motherland. We are watching our soldiers being dragged into an adventure with no clear end for the sake of the ambitions of some people or foreign countries with pure imperialist aims and economic interests in Somalia,” he said.
While CHP deputies voted against the mandate, some other opposition parties supported it. Both Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party members and their allies in the parliament, as well as lawmakers from nationalist opposition parties, argued that the prospects of a functional state in Somalia could benefit the Horn of Africa, the broader Middle East, and Turkey’s global strategic position.
From failed to fractured and fragile (but increasingly functional) state
As recently as 2011, news headlines almost always referred to Somalia as a “failed state” that could not control its territories or provide the most basic services to its citizens. In recent years, however, improvements in the country’s conditions have helped to change that. These days, Somalia is termed “fragile” more than “failed.”
But the work is far from over. Many Somalis still face famine conditions and basic services are not widespread. Perhaps the Turkish experience can be instructive in that regard. Just as the process of Turkey’s political and socioeconomic development took centuries, not decades, the same will be true of Somalia. And just as Turkey’s most important successes and failures were the results of its own people and leaders’ actions, the same will be true of Somalia.
Turkey, which often sets ambitious goals for itself, would be well advised to remember that Somalis should be the masters of their own destiny.
