Mogadishu (Commentary) — When President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited Somalia in 2011, his visit was both a photo opportunity and an act of solidarity with Somali Islamists influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood. The term “Islamist” describes the desire to use religion to achieve political goals; it does not imply piety.
The political Islamists in Somalia — Salafi groups and Muslim Brotherhood-influenced factions such as Damuljadid — sought to capture the state. Türkiye has forged strong ties with Damuljadid, to which President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud belongs. In 2013, he appointed a former banker, Ali Abdi Amalow, to trace Somali assets held in foreign banks. Some of the funds traced by Amalow and Shulman Rogers, an American law firm, were deposited in a Turkish bank. However, there is no data available on Somali assets in Turkish banks. Essentially, Türkiye is in cahoots with corrupt Somali federal leaders who misuse Somalia’s sovereignty to serve Turkish imperial interests in the Horn of Africa.
Erdoğan dreams of reviving the Ottoman Empire on a smaller scale. He sees Somalia, with its sentimental and corrupt federal leaders benefiting from business and political ties with Türkiye’s ruling party, as a country where he can project middle-power status. Ethiopia, under Abiy Ahmed, similarly dreams of following the legacy of Emperor Haile Selassie. This imperial nostalgia unites Ethiopia and Türkiye.
Erdoğan overruled the Federal Government of Somalia’s decision to exclude Ethiopian troops from the AUSSOM peacekeeping force operating in Somalia. Erdogan pressured President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud to include Ethiopian troops in the force, acknowledge Ethiopia’s “sacrifices in fighting Al-Shabaab,” and lease Somali ports to Ethiopia for commercial purposes. Ethiopia has not withdrawn the illegal maritime Memorandum of Understanding it signed with Somaliland, a secessionist administration, nor acknowledged that this was a violation of Somalia’s sovereignty in its attempts to lease a coastal district in northern Somalia. The Ankara Agreement is a betrayal of the sovereignty of Somalia.
President Hassan Sheikh’s son was put on trial in Türkiye for careless driving that caused the death of a Turkish citizen. He was driving a vehicle belonging to the Somali Embassy in Türkiye, despite having the resources to hire a car.
Erdoğan has effectively captured the Somali state by forming ties with corrupt Islamist political elites in Mogadishu. This relationship is based on kleptocratic interests and the exploitation of religious sentiments for hypocritical purposes. The bicameral legislature, controlled by Villa Somalia, plays a key role in maintaining Somalia as a vassal state of Türkiye.
© Puntland Post, 2025
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