“Now, on the African continent, Turkey is a country to be reckoned with and plays a decisive role,” summarized the pro-government daily Sabah after a visit to Ethiopia on February 17 by the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Islamist-conservative).
This new geopolitical reality is particularly true for the Horn of Africa, where a significant part of Ankara’s implantation strategy on the continent is focused. While Turkey is present throughout the region through economic and military agreements, it is primarily around Somalia that it organizes this strategy.
The Turkish press is closely following the journey of the Çağrı Bey, a Turkish drilling ship that is expected to arrive off the Somali coast at the end of March.
This mammoth, 228-meter-long vessel is capable of drilling up to 12 kilometers below the sea to allow for the exploitation of underwater hydrocarbon reserves. This first offshore drilling operation outside Turkish waters in the Black Sea or the Mediterranean Sea mainly demonstrates “a new visibility of Turkey as a player in the economic balance of this strategic region, between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean,” according to a Turkish academic in the columns of
