Foreign News
From presence to partnership: 15 years after Erdogan’s Mogadishu moment
Fifteen years ago, the then-Turkish prime minister and current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan landed in Mogadishu at a moment when Somalia was confronting one of the worst humanitarian crises in its modern history.
Famine had devastated communities across the country, Al Shabab armed group still controlled significant territory, and much of the international community viewed Somalia primarily through the lenses of humanitarian catastrophe, terrorism and state fragility.
Erdogan’s visit was risky, politically significant and, above all, unusual. It was not simply another diplomatic trip to a capital at the centre of a crisis.
It was one of the first high-level international visits to Mogadishu in many years and came at a time when travelling there carried genuine security concerns. Media outlets described it as the first visit by a leader from outside Africa to Somalia in nearly two decades.
Fifteen years later, the significance of that moment can be assessed without romanticising it.
The visit did not create Türkiye-Somalia relations. The two countries are marking 60 years of diplomatic relations in 2026, and their historical connections extend considerably further back.
Türkiye’s embassy in Mogadishu was established in 1979, closed following the collapse of the Somali state in 1991 and reopened in November 2011.
Türkiye had also begun deepening its broader African engagement before Erdogan’s visit, including through its ‘Opening up to Africa’ policy launched in 1998.
What the Mogadishu visit did was different: it changed the trajectory, scale and political meaning of the relationship. It transformed a longstanding bilateral relationship into one of Türkiye’s most comprehensive engagements on the African continent.
From presence to engagement
The importance of the 2011 visit was not simply what Erdogan said in Mogadishu, but the political signal contained in his physical presence.
At a time when Somalia was frequently discussed from conference rooms far from the country itself, Ankara chose to engage on the ground.
The visit helped draw international attention to the famine and demonstrated that Somalia could be approached not only as a humanitarian emergency but also as a political society whose institutions, economy and future required sustained engagement. The distinction matters.
Humanitarian diplomacy often begins with responding to immediate suffering. Strategic engagement begins when the relationship continues after the cameras leave. Türkiye’s engagement did.
Following the visit, TIKA, the Turkish Red Crescent and Turkish nongovernmental organisations expanded their activities across Somalia.
TIKA established its Mogadishu programme coordination office in 2011 and subsequently implemented projects in health, education, agriculture, infrastructure, administrative capacity and humanitarian assistance. Turkish official figures indicate that assistance to Somalia since 2011 has exceeded $1 billion.
The significance of these activities is, therefore, not simply their monetary value. It is the gradual shift from emergency assistance to institutional engagement.
Hospitals, schools, roads and other infrastructure are visible manifestations of this process. But institutions matter more than individual projects because they determine whether external assistance creates capabilities that can survive beyond the assistance itself. This is where the trajectory becomes particularly interesting.
From projects to people
The most consequential legacy of development cooperation is not always a building that can be photographed or a project whose inauguration can be celebrated. Sometimes it is a person.
Over the past 15 years, Türkiye’s engagement with Somalia has included not only humanitarian and infrastructure projects but also scholarships, higher education, professional exchanges, diplomatic training and security-sector capacity building.
The result is a generation of Somalis whose professional experiences have been shaped partly by exposure to Turkish institutions. One of the clearest examples is Abdulkadir Mohamed Nur.
Nur was studying international relations at Ankara University’s Faculty of Political Sciences during the period when Türkiye’s engagement with Somalia was expanding.
He subsequently worked at the Somali Embassy in Ankara and returned to Somalia to take charge of a succession of senior positions, including minister of justice, minister of defence and minister of ports and maritime transport.
This month, he was elected Speaker of Somalia’s Federal Parliament, constitutionally considered the country’s second-most powerful political position after the presidency.
His trajectory should not be interpreted as evidence that Türkiye “created” a Somali political leader. That would oversimplify both his career and the bilateral relationship. It illustrates something more important.
Human capital can become a long-term foreign-policy outcome.
A student educated abroad can become a diplomat. A diplomat can become a policymaker. A policymaker can become a minister. And eventually, that individual can take charge of one of the highest constitutional offices in the country.
The physical projects of development cooperation are, therefore, only one part of the story.
The less visible investment in education, professional networks and institutional exposure may prove equally consequential over time. This is perhaps one of the clearest ways to understand the difference between short-term aid and long-term engagement.
From engagement to strategic partnership
The relationship has also moved far beyond the humanitarian logic that initially brought global attention to Mogadishu.
Türkiye became involved in Somalia’s security-sector development, most visibly through the establishment of the TURKSOM military training centre in 2017. Turkish and Somali institutions have subsequently expanded cooperation in defence, military training and maritime security.
In February 2024, the two countries signed a Defence and Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, marking a significant expansion of bilateral cooperation into defence, maritime security and economic affairs.
