Turkmen Terzi
As AU chairperson, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has been trying to resolve the disagreements between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia over the usage of the waters of the mighty Nile River.
Despite the AU’s effort to make peace in the region, the conflict in the Horn of Africa might encourage Turkey to sell more arms to the region and to surround its key competitor Egypt.
The Horn of Africa recently turned into the centre of a power struggle between regional and international powers.
While China tries to protect its massive investment in the region, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates compete with the Qatar-Turkish block.
The Eritrean government accused Turkey of attempting to derail the peace process with Ethiopia, through Qatar-funded local NGOs which are close to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as well as the collusion of the Sudanese regime.
In a statement released in April 2019, Eritrea’s Ministry of Information said the “Turkish goverment has opened an Office for the Chairman of the obscure “Eritrean Muslim League” and this “subversive outfit made the inflammatory public pronouncements against Eritrea and Ethiopia in a meeting in Khartoum”.
The Turkish Minute news portal said the al-Qaeda-linked aid organisation, The Aid and Solidarity Association for the Poor (Fukara-der), had moved into Ethiopia and Myanmar in a bid to recruit Jihadists.
The organisation’s primary aim is to help take care of al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadist fighting groups in Turkey and Syria.
Turkish police arrested Fukara-der’s executive director Hasan Suslu and 13 others in January 2019 for their links to al-Qaeda.
Fukara-Der’s fund-raising activities in European countries, especially in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, have come under increased scrutiny, the news portal reported.
Turkey’s political and military interference has also upset Somalia's opposition.
According to Reuters, in December last year, Somalia’s opposition Abdirahman Abdishakur Warsame, who is chairperson of the Wadajir (unity) party and one other candidate stated in their joint letter to Turkey’s ambassador in Somalia that they had learnt Turkey was planning to deliver 1 000 G3 assault rifles and 150 000 bullets to Somali’s special police unit Harma’ad.
Somalian opposition leaders warned that they were “worried about this amount of weapons… flooding the country at this sensitive election time.”
While Turkish construction, defence and textile firms have been benefiting from Ethiopia’s decades-long economic boom, recently interrupted by Covid-19, Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent political ambitions puts private Turkish investments at risk in the country and has added to the regional struggle between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates against Qatar-backed Turkey.
The main interest of Turkey and the Gulf states is in controlling Somali seaports for their security and trade.
A UAE company has signed a $336 million (about R5 million) contract to expand Somali’s semi-autonomous Putland’s Bosaso port.
Putland’s Berbara port is controlled by another UAE-owned firm.
According to news reports, Ethiopia took a stake in the Berbara port for an undisclosed sum.
UAE’s rival, Turkey, has been controlling Somalia's Mogadishu port since 2014 and Turkey’s biggest military base abroad is in Somalia.
Turkey’s strong relations with Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia could have helped to calm ethnic tension in the region but Turkey has seen ethnic problems from a military perspective for a long time.
It will be too much of a luxury to expect Turkey to contribute to AU peace efforts in the Horn of Africa, especially since Ankara ended its own Kurdish peace process, jailed the leaders of legitimise pro-Kurdish political party HDP and often conduct military operations that also severely harm civilian Kurds.
Ankara also ended its normalisation process with Yerevan in 2008 and, recently, Turkish drones played a significant role in Azerbaijan’s recent victory against Armenia.
Following the Turkish parliaments’ December 2020 bill that extended the military deployment to Libya for 18 months, Libyan MP Zidan al-Zadma and Libyan parliament's defence and security committee member Ali Al-Takbali have accused Turkey of being a threat to the peace process and the ceasefire deal signed in August between parties to end the conflict in Libya.
Ever since the Turkish-backed Tripoli-based Government of National Accord defeated Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army in Tripoli June last year, Erdogan has been trying to maintain Turkey's political and economic interests in Libya.
Western powers appear to be at ease with Turkey’s presence in the Horn of Africa as a counterweight to China’s influence, but African leaders must calculate the possible risks of Turkey's military involvements in the heart of Africa.
* Turkmen Terzi is a Turkish journalist in Johannesburg
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of IOL.
ALSO READ: Right of reply from Elif Çomoğlu Ülgen, Ambassador of the Republic of Turkey in South Africa