President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will travel to Ethiopia and Somalia early next year after brokering a deal to end nearly yearlong tensions between the Horn of Africa nations.
“I will visit Ethiopia and Somalia in the first two months of the new year,” Erdoğan said Sunday at an event with the youth in the eastern province of Erzurum.
He referred to the deal between Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in Ankara on Dec. 11.
The pair agreed to end their nearly yearlong bitter dispute after hours of talks brokered by Erdoğan, who hailed the breakthrough as “historic.”
The dispute began in January when landlocked Ethiopia struck a deal with Somalia’s breakaway region Somaliland to lease a stretch of coastline for a port and military base.
In return, Somaliland, which declared independence from Somalia in 1991 in a move not recognized by Mogadishu, said Ethiopia would give it formal recognition, although Addis Ababa never confirmed this.
Somalia branded the deal a violation of its sovereignty, setting international alarm bells ringing over the risk of renewed conflict in the volatile Horn of Africa region.
Türkiye stepped in to mediate in July, holding three previous rounds of talks – two in Ankara and one in New York – before last week’s breakthrough, which won praise from the African Union, Washington and Brussels.
Upon a question about Türkiye’s role in the signing of the declaration, Erdoğan explained that Ankara’s strong relations with both sides had allowed it to progress with mediation efforts where others could not.
“This problem between Somalia and Ethiopia has been going on for many years. Ethiopia is a huge place, twice the size of Somalia, but it is landlocked,” he said.
“The fact that a place with such a large and gigantic land is landlocked seriously disturbs them. Many countries have been involved in this issue until today, but they have not been able to solve this issue,” he added.
Noting his “special rapport” with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Erdoğan said this had allowed them to discuss the dispute, which escalated in January when Ethiopia signed a deal with Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland to use the Red Sea port of Berbera.
Türkiye has also been a country that “embraced Somalia in its most critical period,” supporting the country as it faced attacks by terrorist organizations. “We made investments there. Along with those investments, we also took steps against terrorist organizations in Somalia.”
Erdoğan said Ankara also provided Ethiopia “all the support we could in the economy, in defense.”
Expressing pride in the Ankara Declaration, Erdoğan said, “This is how we announced a beautiful future to Africa. We announced it to the whole world.”
“When we are sincere, when our intentions are good, anything can happen,” he added.
Fresh from his latest diplomatic success, Erdoğan phoned Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan on Friday and offered “to step in to resolve the disputes between Sudan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE),” his office said.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been mired in a brutal conflict between army chief Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who leads the RSF.
Sudan’s army-backed government has repeatedly accused the UAE of supporting the RSF – a claim that the UAE has consistently denied.
The war has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced over 11 million more.