Erdogan's tricks and poisons to penetrate Horn of Africa
Since Recep Tayyip Erdogan became president of Turkey, he
has used his position to support terrorist movements, especially in the Horn of
Africa, as he has always sought to establish a foothold in that region to
control its natural resources.
Somalia
Erdogan told the world press in January that the Somali
government submitted a request to Turkey asking it to prospect for gas and oil
off its coast, revealing Ankara’s true face in the Horn of Africa.
NTV quoted Erdogan as saying that oil exploration in Somali
regional waters will generate a significant return for the Turkish economy.
Turkey has been a major aid donor to Somalia following a
famine in 2011. Ankara provided aid through the Turkish Cooperation and
Coordination Agency (TIKA) as a way to strengthen its influence in the country,
which overlooks one of the most important maritime straits in the world, where
energy and oil materials are transported to Europe via the Red Sea.
Influence
Turkey is working to increase its influence in the Horn of
Africa, especially Somalia. To this end, it opened the largest Turkish military
base abroad in the Somali capital Mogadishu in October 2017. Then-Turkish Army
Chief of Staff Hulusi Akar confirmed at the time that Turkish officers would
train more than 10,000 Somali soldiers at the base.
This base, which includes three military schools along with
other facilities, is the largest Turkish military training camp outside Turkey.
The volume of trade exchanged between Turkey and Somalia also reached about
$100 million just until 2017.
Turkey's allegations
Turkey claims that the base is aimed at helping the Somali
government face terrorist groups, but the reality confirms otherwise, as
international reports show that Ankara was supporting terrorist and extremist
groups in order to bring stability to the country so that Turkey could continue
its interventions, like in Libya.
Hidden relationship with terrorism
In January 2019, the Nordic Monitor website revealed that
the US government had obtained information about Turkish intelligence having a
hidden relationship with terrorist movements in Somalia. According to the
website, the information obtained from judicial documents confirms that Ankara
sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Somali Al-Shabaab movement through
a client who was a former prisoner in Guantanamo Bay.
The report pointed out that the US government informed
Ankara of the matter and requested an investigation to uncover the terrorist
network that is financing the extremist movement. But the Erdogan government
halted investigations launched after the notification sent by the office of
then-Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David
Cohen.
Turkey's relationship with Al-Shabaab, which is loyal to
al-Qaeda, is hidden and may sometimes appear in the form of a kind of
hostility, but at the core they share common interests, which are carried out
through Brotherhood mediators. In February 2018, Brotherhood-affiliated Somali
Council of Scholars chairman Bashir Salad revealed the existence of strong
relations and common interests between the Erdogan regime and the terrorist Al-Shabaab
movement, allowing Ankara to be the only one capable of mediating between the
movement and the Somali government, according to his statements to the Turkish
Anadolu Agency. “Turkey is a major country that can play a role in how to
contain and end the Somali crisis,” he said.
Djibouti and Eritrea
In December 2016, Turkey signed an agreement with Djibouti
to establish a free trade zone amounting to 12 million square meters, with an
expected economic capability of $1 trillion.
At the beginning of 2019, Turkey inaugurated the office of
the Eritrean Scholars Association, which issues public statements against both
Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Eritrea reported that Turkey has been trying since late 2018
to impede the completion of the peace process and developments in the relations
between Eritrea and Ethiopia in particular, and the Horn of Africa region in
general.
