Somalia’s partnership with Türkiye is, by most measures, a foreign-policy success story and it has earned that reputation.
Over the past fifteen years, Ankara has become Somalia’s most consequential external partner, with a presence that extends well beyond conventional aid or investment.
Türkiye trains and equips the Somali National Army at both in Ankara, and TURKSOM, its principal overseas military training facility in Mogadisu.
Turkish firms Albayrak and Favori operate Mogadishu’s port and international airport.
Through its global development agency, TİKA, Ankara has financed and delivered hundreds of projects since 2011, including infrastructure, education and health initiatives, while supporting the Recep Tayyip Erdogan Hospital and the development of agricultural education.
Increasingly, Türkiye has also become a diplomatic actor. Ankara helped mediate the dispute between Somalia and Ethiopia following Addis Ababa’s January 2024 memorandum of understanding with Somaliland, which Mogadishu regarded as a direct challenge to its territorial integrity.
The resulting Ankara Declaration helped pull the two governments back from a potentially dangerous confrontation and established a framework for negotiations over Ethiopia’s access to the sea.
More recently, Türkiye has sought to bring the same diplomatic capital to bear on Somalia’s internal political disputes, attempting to facilitate dialogue as Mogadishu has struggled to reach agreement over the country’s electoral future.
No other external power is woven quite so deeply into the Somali state.
That is precisely why the relationship now deserves a more sophisticated conversation.
The question is not whether Türkiye has been a good partner. In many respects, it plainly has. The more consequential question is what happens when one foreign power becomes simultaneously a security partner, commercial operator, development financier and diplomatic interlocutor – and, as a consequence, acquires a degree of structural influence over the state it is helping to rebuild.
That distinction matters.
A partnership built on credibility
Türkiye’s credentials in Somalia are not simply commercial. When President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan travelled to Mogadishu in August 2011, at the height of the famine, Türkiye was willing to enter a Somalia from which much of the international community remained physically and politically distant.
The visit became a defining moment in Ankara’s relationship with Somalia and helped establish a form of political goodwill that subsequent Turkish engagement has repeatedly drawn upon.
The military relationship has been similarly consequential. Training at TURKSOM has contributed to the development of Somali National Army units that have subsequently participated in operations against al-Shabaab.
Türkiye’s involvement has therefore gone beyond providing equipment: it has invested in building elements of a national security institution that Somalia urgently needs.
The diplomatic record is also substantial.
When Ethiopia’s agreement with Somaliland threatened to push Mogadishu and Addis Ababa towards a more serious confrontation over maritime access, Ankara provided a diplomatic channel through which the two governments could step back from the brink.
The Ankara Declaration did not resolve every underlying dispute. But it created a framework for negotiations over Ethiopia’s commercial access to the sea while bringing the issue back into a state-to-state process between Mogadishu and Addis Ababa.
That was a significant diplomatic achievement and one that enhanced Türkiye’s standing not only in Somalia but across the wider Horn of Africa.
From external disputes to domestic politics
Ankara’s ambitions have increasingly extended beyond Somalia’s external relations.
In 2026, as negotiations over Somalia’s electoral arrangements became increasingly difficult, Turkish officials engaged with the Federal Government and opposition actors in an effort to facilitate dialogue and prevent the political impasse from deepening.
The significance of that intervention lies less in whether it ultimately produced a comprehensive settlement than in what it reveals about Türkiye’s changing role.
Ankara is no longer simply a partner that provides assistance when requested. It is increasingly being treated and is increasingly behaving – as an actor with a stake in Somalia’s political stability. That brings both opportunity and complication.
The opposition has at times questioned whether Türkiye can be regarded as entirely neutral in a domestic dispute given its exceptionally close security and political relationship with the Federal Government.
That criticism deserves consideration without diminishing Ankara’s diplomatic effort.
Both propositions can be true: Türkiye may be acting in good faith to prevent a political crisis, while Somali actors may reasonably ask whether a country so deeply invested in the Federal Government can simultaneously serve as a fully disinterested mediator.
That is not an indictment of Türkiye. It is an unavoidable consequence of the depth of the relationship it has built.
The military dimension
A similar duality can be seen in Türkiye’s expanding military footprint.
The development of facilities and military infrastructure in Somalia reflects Ankara’s stated interest in strengthening Somali sovereignty and security, particularly as competition over the Horn of Africa’s coastline becomes more intense.
From Mogadishu’s perspective, Turkish security cooperation can therefore be seen as precisely what a strategic ally should provide: support for Somalia at a moment when external powers are increasingly competing for influence along its shores.
But there is another legitimate question.
Every additional foreign military facility creates a long-term relationship of obligations, access and strategic expectations. The issue is not whether Türkiye should have a military presence in Somalia; there may be compelling reasons for it to do so. The issue is whether the terms of that presence are sufficiently transparent, institutionally scrutinised and aligned with a coherent Somali national security strategy.
The distinction is important because sovereignty is not simply the ability to invite a foreign partner in. It is the institutional capacity to determine the terms on which that partner remains.
The leverage of infrastructure
The commercial relationship presents a similar paradox.
Albayrak’s management of Mogadishu’s port and Favori’s operation of the international airport have brought investment and expertise into two of Somalia’s most important economic gateways.
Yet the strategic significance of those assets goes beyond their commercial value.
Ports and airports are not ordinary businesses. They are national chokepoints — gateways through which trade, people, customs revenue and international connectivity flow.
In 2024, disputes between the Somali government and the Turkish companies operating the port and airport demonstrated precisely why such arrangements require strong institutions and transparent contracts.
The disagreements were ultimately about commercial and contractual questions, but they also highlighted the sensitivity of having critical national infrastructure operated by companies from the same foreign country that trains the national army and plays an increasingly prominent diplomatic role.
None of this makes Turkish investment inherently problematic. Indeed, Somalia needs precisely this kind of investment. The issue is concentration.
Capital creates access. Security cooperation creates institutional ties. Infrastructure creates leverage.
Diplomacy creates political relationships. When all four are concentrated in one external partner, the aggregate influence becomes more consequential than any individual agreement suggests.
The real issue is not Türkiye
It would be a mistake to frame this as an argument against Türkiye.
Somalia is not choosing between Turkish influence and a world without foreign influence. The United States, Gulf states, neighbouring countries, China, European powers and others are all competing for economic, political and strategic relevance in the Horn of Africa.
Türkiye’s position is distinctive because it has invested so extensively across so many parts of the Somali state. That makes Ankara less an exception to Somalia’s foreign-policy challenge than its clearest case study.
The question for Mogadishu is therefore not whether Türkiye is a friend, a patron or an investor. It is whether Somalia possesses the institutional strength to manage a relationship with a partner that has become all three in different ways.
That requires transparency in major agreements, parliamentary scrutiny where appropriate, competitive and clearly defined commercial arrangements, and a national strategy that places Somali institutions — rather than individual administrations — at the centre of long-term foreign partnerships.
The principle should be simple: Somalia should welcome deep partnerships without allowing depth itself to become a substitute for institutional oversight.
A test for Ankara, too there is also a lesson here for Türkiye.
Ankara has accumulated considerable goodwill in Somalia precisely because it has often behaved differently from traditional external actors. Its appeal has rested on visibility, political engagement and a willingness to invest when others were reluctant to do so. That goodwill is an asset.
But strategic partnerships become durable not when one side becomes indispensable to the other, but when both sides remain confident enough in the relationship to preserve their respective autonomy.
For Türkiye, that means recognising that Somali sovereignty is not merely something to defend against rival powers. It is also something to be strengthened institutionally within Somalia itself.
A Turkish-backed institution that ultimately becomes capable of operating independently is a greater strategic achievement than one that remains permanently dependent on Ankara. The same logic applies to political mediation.
Türkiye’s influence will be more sustainable if Somali political actors regard Ankara as a trusted facilitator rather than as an indispensable arbiter of domestic politics.
That distinction may become increasingly important as Somalia approaches its next national political cycle.
Partnership without dependency
Somalia needs Türkiye.
There is little reason to obscure that reality. Ankara has invested heavily in Somalia’s security, infrastructure, institutions and diplomacy, and many of those investments have produced tangible results. But Türkiye also needs a stable and sovereign Somalia if its wider regional strategy is to endure.
The healthiest version of the relationship is therefore not one in which Somalia becomes less reliant on Türkiye by distancing itself from Ankara. It is one in which Somalia becomes stronger precisely because of what Türkiye has helped it build.
That means a Somali state capable of negotiating confidently with Türkiye, as well as with Washington, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Addis Ababa, Brussels and others.
The objective should not be to dilute the Turkish relationship for its own sake.
It should be to ensure that no external relationship; however productive, however friendly and however strategically valuable, becomes indispensable to the point of constraining Somali choice.
That is the real test of sovereignty in today’s Horn of Africa. Türkiye has earned an unusually deep place in Somalia.
The challenge for Mogadishu now is to ensure that depth remains partnership rather than dependency, influence rather than control, and strategic alignment rather than political ownership.
And for Ankara, the strongest guarantee that its place in Somalia will endure may be precisely the opposite of what great powers traditionally seek: a Somalia strong enough to say no when it needs to, and confident enough to say yes when it genuinely chooses to.
Mohamed Amin Mohamud, is the Executive Director of Jubaland Non State Actors Association [JUNSAA]