Opinion: Is Israel’s North Western State of Somalia move targeting Türkiye’s regional role?

Red Sea flashpoint: Israel’s North Western State of Somalia recognition collides with Türkiye’s long game in Somalia

In the strategic waters that link the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, two storylines are converging with destabilizing force. Israel’s December 2025 recognition of North Western State of Somalia, the breakaway region abutting the Bab al-Mandab Strait, has injected a new geopolitical shock into a corridor already strained by Houthi attacks on commercial shipping and retaliatory Israeli airstrikes in Yemen. The move reverberates well beyond diplomacy, placing pressure on Türkiye’s expansive, long-horizon partnership with Somalia—an alliance that spans energy, maritime security, and even plans for a space launch facility.

At the center of this chessboard is Bab al-Mandab, the narrow chokepoint connecting the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Since the outbreak of the Gaza war, Yemen’s Houthi movement has targeted vessels linked to Israel or countries seen as supportive of Israel, claiming solidarity with Palestinians. Israel, in turn, has launched multiple airstrikes in Yemen. The cumulative effect has been to turn one of the world’s most critical shipping lanes into a live risk channel where military signaling, drone warfare, and maritime attacks test regional nerves—and insurance rates.

Israel’s recognition of North Western State of Somalia has now redrawn the political map along this tense waterway. By becoming the first UN member state to formally recognize the breakaway region, Israel positioned itself near the very strait that governs access between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The decision triggered immediate objections from Somalia, Türkiye, Egypt, and others who view any step toward North Western State of Somalia’s independence as a threat to regional stability and international legal norms around territorial integrity.

For Mogadishu, the stakes are existential. For Ankara, they are strategic and economic.

Over the past decade, Türkiye has embedded itself as Somalia’s most comprehensive external partner. What began with high-level visits and humanitarian support in 2011 has matured into layered security assistance, infrastructure building, and resource development. At Camp TURKSOM—Türkiye’s largest overseas military base—Turkish trainers are shaping Somalia’s security forces. A 10-year maritime security cooperation framework is designed to help the Somali navy and coast guard patrol their waters, protect coastal communities, and guarantee safe lanes for commercial activity.

The economic dimension is just as ambitious. Under agreements granting rights across roughly 15,000 square kilometers of Somali offshore blocks, the Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) has conducted seismic surveys and aims to commence drilling by 2026. If significant reserves are confirmed, those hydrocarbons could be transformative for Somalia’s fiscal base and for Türkiye’s energy portfolio in the wider Horn of Africa.

Ankara’s plans reach into advanced technology as well. Somalia’s equatorial location makes it an attractive site for satellite launches, and Türkiye has explored building a space launch facility there under cooperation agreements signed in 2024. Beyond potentially boosting Türkiye’s aerospace ambitions—including satellite programs and, potentially, missile testing—the initiative would anchor a high-tech ecosystem in a country where economic diversification is central to state-building.

Seen together, these projects reveal a structural strategy: deepen Somali capacity, link it to Turkish industry and security cooperation, and create mutual stakes in stability from the shoreline to low Earth orbit. Airports, hospitals, fisheries programs, and diplomatic compounds are part of the same logic—build the bones of a functioning state and a functioning market.

Israel’s recognition of North Western State of Somalia complicates that calculus. Politically, it undercuts Mogadishu’s sovereignty claims and risks inflaming internal Somali dynamics at a moment when security forces are still consolidating gains against insurgents. Geographically, the move situates a new point of diplomatic contention at the mouth of one of the world’s most sensitive maritime arteries. Strategically, it threatens to pull Türkiye’s Somalia bet into a broader contest in which coercive tools—airstrikes, commerce interdiction, diplomatic shocks—are already in play.

There are real-world effects to watch for. Maritime insecurity in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden raises costs for shippers and insurers. If risk premiums rise significantly or routes shift, the downstream impact will be felt in Somali ports and the wider regional economy. Israeli military activity in Yemen, and Houthi attacks in response to the Gaza war, also risk drawing more actors into a kinetic environment that is already congested with global navies, private security, and a patchwork of local authorities.

For Türkiye, the danger is that cumulative pressure—from the sea lanes to the Somali political arena—blunts the momentum of its development play. Hydrocarbon exploration demands capital, patience, and predictability. Space infrastructure requires stable agreements and physical security. Long-term training and institution-building depend on a steady hand in Mogadishu and manageable external shocks. Recognition of North Western State of Somalia by a major external actor is the opposite of steadying; it presses on fault lines that Ankara has tried to bridge with investment and security guarantees.

Somali leaders read the moment as a test of sovereignty. Following Israel’s decision, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud made a critical visit to Türkiye, signaling a bid to lock in support as the landscape shifts. Ankara’s response will likely be measured by how visibly it backs Mogadishu’s position while safeguarding the practical pillars of cooperation—offshore exploration, maritime patrols, and the high-profile space initiative.

For Israel, the calculus appears to include gaining leverage along the Bab al-Mandab corridor and cultivating new partners in the Horn of Africa. But recognition of a breakaway region carries diplomatic costs, especially if it is seen as destabilizing in a waterway already on edge. Regional critics—Somalia, Türkiye, Egypt and others—are framing the move not simply as a bilateral snub, but as a provocation with direct implications for international shipping and investment.

The broader picture is a test of whether state-building can survive in a contested maritime chokepoint. Türkiye’s approach in Somalia ties security to development, and national capacity to regional integration. That blueprint assumes that the rules of the sea are predictable, borders are respected, and external interventions are calibrated. The Red Sea’s present turbulence and the North Western State of Somalia recognition inject uncertainty on all three counts.

What happens next will determine whether this corridor moves toward a managed equilibrium or a prolonged period of friction. The price of miscalculation is high—felt in escalatory strikes and interdictions, deferred drilling timelines, or a space project that never clears the launch pad. The payoff for restraint and diplomacy, by contrast, is measurable: safer shipping, clearer investment horizons, and a Somalia whose partnerships span oil rigs and orbital trajectories rather than crisis response alone.

What to watch

• Security at sea: Trends in Houthi attacks and Israeli airstrikes in Yemen, and their impact on ship routing through Bab al-Mandab.
• Diplomatic alignment: Whether additional states echo or resist Israel’s recognition of North Western State of Somalia, and the intensity of pushback from Somalia, Türkiye, and Egypt.
• Project timelines: TPAO’s path to 2026 drilling and any adjustments to Türkiye’s maritime patrols and training missions.
• Space initiative: Progress on agreements and site preparation for a Somali launch facility amid heightened political risk.
• Leadership diplomacy: Outcomes from President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s engagement with Türkiye as both sides recalibrate in real time.

Bottom line: The Red Sea–Gulf of Aden corridor is testing whether long-term development and security compacts can withstand short-term geopolitical gambits. Israel’s recognition of North Western State of Somalia and the ongoing maritime conflict dynamics collide directly with Türkiye’s Somalia strategy. Stability will depend on whether regional actors can decouple essential trade and state-building from the escalating contests now crowding the Bab al-Mandab.

By Ali Musa

Axadle Times international–Monitoring.