Turkey has assembled operational control over nearly every strategic economic asset in Somalia, creating what amounts to a relatively novel model of foreign dependency. Unlike the commonplace Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) framework, or China’s Belt and Road approach, which operates through lending and leverage, Turkey’s model works through direct operational control of sovereign functions. Ankara has positioned itself upstream of Somalia’s revenue flows and embedded itself so deeply that extraction would risk institutional collapse.

Turkish entities now serve as the conduit for a substantial share of Somalia’s domestic revenue, a dynamic reflected in an Atlantic Council assessment of Turkey’s bilateral deals with Mogadishu. Since then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s landmark 2011 famine visit to Mogadishu, Turkey has progressed from humanitarian responder to the operator of Somalia’s core state infrastructure.

That progression accelerated sharply after a series of bilateral agreements beginning in February 2024, when a defense-and-economy framework agreement established the foundation for naval deployment and maritime security cooperation. A separate hydrocarbon exploration memorandum followed in March 2024, a fisheries monopoly was formalized in December 2025, and discussions on missile-testing rights proceeded on a parallel track.

Turkish Control of Core Infrastructure

The scope of Turkish operational control is extraordinary when catalogued in full. The Albayrak Group, a government-connected Turkish conglomerate, has managed the Port of Mogadishu since 2014 under a concession renewed for an additional 14 years. While the nominal government share was set at 55 percent, a Middle East Institute analysis found that Albayrak reported only $2.7 million in monthly revenue during its initial 2014 operating period against estimated actual throughput of $10 to $12 million, suggesting that Mogadishu’s real take may have been closer to 16 percent.