Source: World Oil
The move confirmed by Mohamed Hashi, head of Somalia’s oil ministry, could help diversify Turkey’s crude supply and is part of Ankara’s ongoing quest to boost ties in a region where China, Russia, Gulf states and the West are also vying for influence. Attracted by the continent’s mineral wealth and a growing population that could fuel a new wave of economic growth, the approach makes perfect sense for the county as it demonstrates its international clout.
Africa is interesting for Turkey because it is a place where it can experiment with all its new activist foreign policy tools and goals, said Batu Coşkun, an Ankara-based researcher at Libya's Sadeq Institute think tank.
On the one hand, this is about soft power, such as aid, education and Turkish language centres, and on the other, trade and economic relations, he said. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in Somalia, where Turkey operates its largest overseas military base and Turkish companies run the capital’s port and airport. Baykar, the Turkish drone company run by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s son-in-law Selcuk Bayraktar, has supplied Somalia with an unknown number of its TB2 model, expanding the country’s offensive against the Islamist group al-Shabaab.
For Turkey, Somalia offers a geostrategic location to increase its influence in the Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean, said Omar Mahmood, senior analyst for East Africa at the International Crisis Group.
The engagement with Somalia has served as both a test and a springboard for Turkey’s overall strategy to deepen diplomatic, trade and security ties across the African continent. Since famine decimated Somalia’s population in 2011, Turkey has stood by the impoverished nation, which has been synonymous with conflict and suffering since a civil war broke out.
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