By paying a part of Somalia’s debts, Erdogan has limited Qatar’s ambitions in Mogadishu

A few days ago, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan launched a decision to pay part of Somalia’s debts to the International Treasury Bank Fund, through special drawing rights in its reserve accounts, to support economic reforms of this country located in the Horn of Africa.

In parallel with the Turkish decision’s publication, the residents of the town of Hobyo, in the Mudug region of central Somalia, decided to depend on their own efforts to construct the town’s port. In fact, Qatar had promised to finance its construction, whose inauguration ceremony for the project was held with the participation of the President of the State of Galmudug Ahmed Abdi Kari Qor Qor, the first vice-president of the Senate, Absher Bukhari, Second Deputy Speaker of the People’s Assembly, Mahd Awadh, Galmudug State officials, politicians, businessmen, and sheikhs.

Saber Nur Shuri, Minister of Oceans and Fisheries of the Galmudug Administration, whose ministry organized the ceremony, explained that the port’s construction would begin soon with funding from state residents. He was announced that the cost of the first step of the building of the port would reach 90 million dollars, and the participants provided as a donation part of the amount.

This came after that Qatar didn’t respect its promises to Somalia after promising many times to finance the Hobyo port construction project, but its promises didn’t make. A Qatari delegation accompanied by the Minister of oceans of the Somali Federal Government and the former President of Galmudug State, Ahmed Daali Haf, visited the city in July 2018 to estimate construction costs. Then Qatar promised to start construction in August 2019, and to pay costs of the first step of the construction of the port that are estimated at 174 million dollars, but it didn’t achieve anything, which led the state’s residents to depend on their own efforts after the revelation of the false promises of Doha and the Al-Hamdeen regime.

The Qatari regime did not expect that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan exploit this situation and pay some of Somalia’s remaining debts. He demanded to Somali President Abdullah Farmaajo to deliver him the port of Hobyo, according to sources.

Analysts considered that the Turks aim, over these innocent measures, to control the ports of Bab El-Mandeb, including the ports of Djibouti and Berbera in the Republic of Somalia and the port of Mogadishu, which facilitates their control of imports and exports from the Horn of Africa, and this in the context of intense competition for the region that has seen a strong membership of the Gulf countries after having supported the agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea and the signing of major contracts to develop the economies of the two countries.