Last week, Egyptian President Abdelfattah el-Sisi visited Ankara to meet his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in what was billed as a landmark trip to cement a new détente between the two Mediterranean states. Relations between Turkey and Egypt have been warming in recent months following attempts by both sides to repair a decade-long fractured relationship. el-Sisi and Erdogan first met in New Delhi in September 2023 at the sidelines of the G20 summit, the countries’ first high-level meeting in 12 years. In February 2024, Erdogan visited Cairo, met el-Sisi, and agreed to a raft of agreements on economic and defence cooperation.
Relations between Turkey and Egypt plummeted in 2013 when the army in Egypt overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi and installed el-Sisi as president. Over a decade of frosty relations and geopolitical rivalry in the Middle East and North Africa followed as the two governments played on opposite sides and sought to undermine one another, most notably in Libya. Turkish deployment of combat drones to support Libya’s internationally-recognised Government of National Unity proved decisive in tilting the war against General Haftar, a warlord backed by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Erdogan’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood and the Arab youth revolt in 2011 pitted him against conservative Arab forces and regimes that loathed revolutionary groups espousing Islamist or even liberal ideals. The army in Egypt– which like the Turkish army believes in stability and views itself as the custodian of national interests and unity– was angered by Erdogan’s propaganda supporting Islamists and other militant groups in the Middle East during the Arab Spring.
Cairo and Ankara are being brought together by a growing sense of vulnerability in a volatile region. Turkey is isolated in the Mediterranean arena. Its forays into Libya, projection of power in disputed waters off the coast of Cyprus, and controversial exploration of energy resources have antagonised regional states, such as Italy, Greece, Cyprus and France. Erdogan’s ‘De-Europeanisation’ strategy and his pivot to the Muslim near-abroad in the Arab Peninsula, the Levant and the Caucasus have rattled traditional Muslim middle powers vying for influence in the region, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iran.
Yet there are also emerging areas of convergence. The outbreak of war in Gaza in late 2023 has brought Muslim states together. Erdogan’s strong support for the Palestinian cause and Hamas has endeared him to both Egyptians and Arabs in general. el-Sisi, whose government is involved in delicate negotiations to find a negotiated settlement to the conflict, needs Erdogan on his side and values the political pressure being exerted by Ankara on Western states.
Days before el-Sisi visited Ankara, Egyptian and Turkish navies staged a military exercise in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, interpreted as a signal of cooperation instead of competition there. One of the Turkish warships involved in the joint exercise, a corvette-class warship the TCG Kinaliada, docked in Mogadishu harbour earlier this year on its way to Japan.
Turkey and Egypt share some concerns in the Red Sea and their interests are broadly aligned with those of Somalia. They each favour a strong centralised Somali state and would like to keep Somaliland in the union. Turkey is heavily invested in Mogadishu and worries that the recent memorandum of understanding between Somaliland and Ethiopia could upend its stakes. Egypt is keen to foil the deal and prevent Ethiopia from obtaining a naval outpost that could pose a strategic threat to its interests.
For the moment, Egypt and Turkey calculate that the combined weight of their interventions and military cooperation with Somalia could deter Ethiopia from going ahead with Somaliland. But what they could practically do to respond if Addis implements the MOU remains unclear. el-Sisi’s comments in Ankara that an agreement was reached to ‘protect’ Somali sovereignty against foreign threats, seem slightly off script – at least as far as the Turks are concerned. Ankara is still invested in a diplomatic solution, and its language appears deliberately intended to de-escalate. While el-Sisi’s rhetoric remains as belligerent as ever. In fact, Egypt has moved swiftly to conflate the Ethiopia-Somaliland MOU with the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam dispute. Therein lies the challenge for Turkey.
Ankara has vast commercial stakes in Ethiopia. There are 200 Turkish companies operating there, employing tens of thousands of Ethiopians. Its investment currently stands at USD 2 billion. Ethiopia is also Africa’s main buyer of high-end Turkish combat drones. Supply of drone spare parts, munitions and technical support alone is estimated at close to USD 500 million annually. Turkey would not want to jeopardise this significant military and trade advantage.
It is expected that Turkey will learn that its interests in the Horn of Africa do not necessarily align with those of Egypt. In Ethiopia, they are definitely at odds. It therefore seems premature to claim that Ankara and Cairo will collaborate militarily or otherwise to deter Ethiopia from obtaining a naval outpost on the Red Sea. What the two countries will do in the coming days is project a semblance of unity and a pretence of cohesion in relation to Somalia in the hope that they slow Ethiopia down.
This article was first published by The Somali Wire.
