Israel’s Rivalry With Turkiye Played A Major Role In Its Recognition Of Somaliland

Israel obtains strategic depth in proximity to Turkiye’s Somali facilities for monitoring and – if need be – destroying them if evidence emerges that they’re being used for nuclear purposes like its media now suspects is the purpose behind its planned spaceport and military cooperation with Pakistan there.

Israel just became the first UN member state to recognize Somaliland. Some casual observers believe that this is driven by the desire to have an allied presence in proximity to Iranian-allied and Houthi-controlled North Yemen and/or ahead of Somaliland reportedly accepting large numbers of Gazans. Regarding the first hypothesis, Israel has already proven that it can strike North Yemen without difficulty so it doesn’t need a regional base to do so, while the second alleged imperative isn’t a priority anymore.

The present piece argues that the real reason why Israel unexpectedly made this move at this precise moment in time is actually due to its rivalry with Turkiye. Casual observers probably aren’t aware, but Turkiye nowadays exerts influence over practically every sphere of significance in Somalia, which lends credence to an alarming national security scenario from Israel’s perspective that’ll be discussed shortly. Before getting to that, it’s important to briefly review exactly what influence Turkiye has there.

The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency, its version of USAID, has implemented more than 500 projects since beginning operations in 2011. Turkiye has also been training Somali forces since the opening of its TURKSOM base, its largest overseas one, in 2017. Their economic and military cooperation was then strengthened through a related pact in early 2024, which will modernize the Somali Navy in exchange for Somalia reportedly giving Turkiye 90% of its offshore energy revenue.

By year’s end, Somalia confirmed that Turkiye is building a spaceport on its territory, which an earlier report claimed could have the dual purpose of a ballistic missile test-fire site (the Eastern Mediterranean is too congested for Turkiye to test such arms from its own territory unlike the western Indian Ocean). Earlier this summer, Turkiye’s (de facto junior) partner Pakistan signed a similar military training deal with Somalia, thus representing a conspicuous convergence of their military interests in that country.

All of this led to the popular Israel Hayom’s piece in early December about how “Turkey’s quiet power play in the Red Sea turns Somalia into a proxy”, which discussed an alarming national security scenario that contextualizes Israel’s Somaliland decision. According to them, Turkiye is building a “second strategic geography” in Somalia for testing nuclear weapons and delivery systems (under the cover of its spaceport), which it could obtain through Nigerien uranium and Pakistani missile and nuclear expertise.

While some might scoff at this, the thanks that Netanyahu gave to the Mossad chief in his post about Israel’s recognition of Somaliland suggests that his decision was indeed driven by very serious national security considerations, most likely those pertaining to what was described above. By recognizing Somaliland, Israel could obtain strategic depth in proximity to Turkiye’s Somali facilities for monitoring and – if need be – destroying them if evidence emerges that they’re being used for nuclear purposes.

From Somaliland, Israel could also orchestrate political campaigns for weakening Turkiye’s (arguably hegemonic) hold over Somalia as a means of preemptively averting this worst-case scenario through non-kinetic means, which Somaliland might allow since this helps ensure its own security. The takeaway is that Israel recognized Somaliland more for reasons related to its rivalry with Turkiye than with Iran, and given what’s at stake, Turkiye might soon encourage Somalia to stir more trouble with Somaliland.