WPR
Turkey’s High-Risk, High-Reward Wager in the Horn of Africa
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made his first trip to Ethiopia in over a decade in February as part of a regional tour that included stops in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. He received a red-carpet welcome in Addis Ababa, where Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed heralded the “lasting friendship” and “solid cooperation” between the two countries as they marked 100 years of diplomatic ties. The two leaders also signed important economic agreements that point to energy and infrastructure deals in the future.
But behind the photo ops and signing ceremonies and joint press conferences, a much more complicated game is unfolding across the Horn of Africa. Turkey is placing enormous bets in this volatile neighborhood involving billions of dollars of investment in oil and gas development, advanced weaponry, and expanding security cooperation. Indeed, Erdogan’s visit to Ethiopia in many ways grows out of Turkey’s longstanding relationship with Somalia, where Turkish F-16 fighter jets recently deployed to help the Somali government step up its fight against the Al-Shabab insurgency.
Oil is a critical driver of Ankara’s push into the Horn. Turkey currently imports roughly 90 percent of its oil and natural gas, a dependency that leaves it painfully exposed to global price swings that have been on display in recent weeks due to the Iran war. According to a report published last October by economists at the Central Bank of Turkey, a $10 increase in the per-barrel price of oil adds about $2.6 billion to the country’s current account deficit over 12 months and pushes inflation up by roughly 1.2 percentage points
But behind the photo ops and signing ceremonies and joint press conferences, a much more complicated game is unfolding across the Horn of Africa. Turkey is placing enormous bets in this volatile neighborhood involving billions of dollars of investment in oil and gas development, advanced weaponry, and expanding security cooperation. Indeed, Erdogan’s visit to Ethiopia in many ways grows out of Turkey’s longstanding relationship with Somalia, where Turkish F-16 fighter jets recently deployed to help the Somali government step up its fight against the Al-Shabab insurgency.
Oil is a critical driver of Ankara’s push into the Horn. Turkey currently imports roughly 90 percent of its oil and natural gas, a dependency that leaves it painfully exposed to global price swings that have been on display in recent weeks due to the Iran war. According to a report published last October by economists at the Central Bank of Turkey, a $10 increase in the per-barrel price of oil adds about $2.6 billion to the country’s current account deficit over 12 months and pushes inflation up by roughly 1.2 percentage points.
This is where Somalia comes in. Sitting beneath the country’s territorial waters are an estimated 30 billion barrels of offshore oil reserves and 6 billion cubic meters of natural gas, figures that place Somalia behind only Libya—where Turkey is now also involved in oil and gas production—and Nigeria in terms of hydrocarbon potential in Africa.
Somalia is set to begin its first-ever offshore oil drilling operations later this week with the assistance of a Turkish government-owned drilling ship. If the operation confirms the existence of commercially viable oil deposits, Ankara will be in pole position to develop them under the terms of a 2024 agreement with Mogadishu that grants the state-owned Turkish Petroleum Corporation exclusive exploration rights across three offshore blocks. A successful operation will reduce the costs of importing energy, ease the current account deficit, soften inflationary pressures and give the Turkish lira a bit more breathing room.
The problem, of course, is that for three decades, Somalia has been one of the world’s most fractured states, with a weak central government, an entrenched jihadist insurgency and coastal waters plagued by piracy.
In order to address the security problem, Turkey has stepped up military cooperation with Somalia. Turkey’s largest overseas base, Camp TURKSOM, is in Mogadishu, where Turkish troops have trained thousands of Somali soldiers. More recently, Turkey deployed fighters jets and attack helicopters to to Somalia.
But the instability in the Horn does not stop at Somalia’s borders. To the west, in Sudan, a devastating civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, has drawn in nearly every regional power. The United Arab Emirates backs the RSF, channeling weapons to it through bases in eastern Libya, Chad and Somalia’s own semi-autonomous Puntland region. Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia all support Sudan’s army, with Ankara supplying drones to the Sudanese military and coordinating operations with Cairo from a secretive air base at East Oweinat, deep in the Egyptian desert.
Meanwhile, in land-locked Ethiopia, Abiy is locked in a bitter standoff with neighboring Eritrea over his desperate desire for coastal access, with alarm growing that the tensions could lead to war. Abiy’s efforts already led to heightened tensions with Somalia in 2024, when he signed a deal with the breakaway region of Somaliland, which claims independence from Mogadishu. The deal granted Ethiopia potential port access on Somaliland’s coast in exchange for eventual diplomatic recognition, prompting angry protests from Mogadishu.
Erdogan quickly stepped in to mediate, hosting Abiy and Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in Ankara for talks that produced a joint declaration to de-escalate the crisis in December 2024.
The nightmare scenario for Turkey, and every other player invested in the Horn, would be if the powder keg ends up igniting.
Erdogan’s February visit to Addis Ababa was partly an effort to reinforce that intermediary role. Standing beside Abiy, he reiterated Turkey’s commitment to Somalia’s territorial integrity while urging Ethiopia to pursue its maritime ambitions peacefully. It’s a delicate dance, as Ankara needs to maintain good relations with Addis Ababa—Ethiopia is Turkey’s largest trading partner in the Horn—but cannot afford to alienate Mogadishu, where its oil investments and military base are located.
Indeed, Turkey is hardly alone in recognizing the Horn’s strategic importance. Israel’s controversial decision to recognize Somaliland as an independent state in December 2025 sent shockwaves through the region.
For Mogadishu, it was an existential challenge. For Turkey, it was a direct provocation. Ankara has invested heavily in Somalia’s unity and views Israeli encroachment as a threat to its position. When Erdogan stood in Addis Ababa and declared that “the Horn of Africa should not be the battlefield of foreign forces,” the message was aimed as much at Israeli leaders as anyone else. Since then, the situation has only grown more complicated, with Israel reportedly moving to open a military base on Somaliland’s coast aimed at targeting the Houthis in Yemen.
The UAE presents a more complicated challenge. Abu Dhabi and Ankara have repaired their relations since the bitter ruptures stemming from the Arab Spring period, but their interests in the Horn continue to clash. The UAE’s support for the RSF in Sudan, its own investments in Somaliland’s Berbera port and its military footprint in Puntland all cut against Turkish interests. That explains why Erdogan offered to mediate directly between Sudan’s army and the UAE, bypassing the RSF entirely, in an effort to end what has become the most destructive war in Africa.
Erdogan’s original itinerary on his February trip reportedly included a stopover in the UAE on the way to Addis Ababa, a detour meant to smooth things over with Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed, with Somalia high on the agenda. But that leg of the tour was quietly shelved, reportedly due to the Emirati leader falling ill.
Riyadh meanwhile has drawn closer to Cairo and Ankara in recent months, alarmed by the UAE’s assertiveness in Yemen and the Horn. When Somalia abruptly canceled its security agreements with the UAE in January, publicly accusing Abu Dhabi of engaging with breakaway regions like Somaliland without the consent of the federal government in Mogadishu, Saudi Arabia quickly moved to fill the vacuum.
A high-level Saudi diplomatic delegation was among the first to land in Mogadishu, and by February the two countries had signed a new military cooperation agreement aimed at strengthening Somalia’s defense capabilities and maritime security. The Saudis, as they have made clear, have their own Red Sea ambitions and have no desire to see the UAE dominate the African coastline unchallenged. That policy has hardened with Iran’s de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has forced Saudi Arabia to funnel millions of barrels of crude through its Red Sea port of Yanbu.
All of this leaves the Horn of Africa more crowded, more competitive, and more dangerous.
In this context, Turkey brings capabilities that other outside powers lack: a willingness to deploy actual combat power, as evidenced by the F-16s to Somalia in late January; an unparalleled tolerance for risk; and a diplomatic flexibility that allows it to talk to nearly everyone.
But danger still looms. Turkey’s mediation between Ethiopia and Somalia could unravel if Addis Ababa grows impatient with its landlocked status and decides to force the issue of sea access. Abiy’s rhetoric and his recurring pointed references to seizing Eritrea’s Assab port suggest that his patience may be wearing thin. The nightmare scenario for Turkey, and every other player invested in the Horn, would be if the powder keg ends up igniting. Right now, Ethiopia and Eritrea are deploying troops and military equipment near their shared border, raising fears of a conflict that analysts warn could cost the regional economy billions.
For Turkey, such a war would pose a major risk to its entire strategy in the Horn of Africa, jeopardizing in particular the deep military, political and commercial investments it has made in Somalia. An Ethiopia-Eritrea war would almost certainly draw in each side’s respective backers—Egypt supporting Eritrea, the UAE backing Ethiopia—with the same actors already competing for influence in Somalia and fueling the civil war in neighboring Sudan.
The Sudanese army could also enter the fray. The recent discovery of an RSF training camp on Ethiopian soil, coupled with Khartoum’s official accusation that drones and soldiers are launching from Ethiopian territory to strike SAF targets inside Sudan, threaten to merge the two conflicts into a single, roiling crisis.
Such a conflagration would supercharge the proxy dynamics that already undermine Somali stability—and, by extension, Turkish investments. Erdogan would be left with a dilemma of whether to mediate once again or pick a side and watch its balancing act collapse. Ultimately, this is the game Ankara chose to play. The question now is whether its bet will be consumed by chaos in the Horn or deliver the payoff Ankara so desperately needs.
Elfadil Ibrahim is a writer and analyst covering the politics of the Middle East and Africa, with a focus on Sudan. His work has previously been featured in The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Open Democracy and other outlets.
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