The political scientist spoke about Turkey's plans to build its first spaceport in Somalia.

Alina Sbitneva, a researcher at the Department of the Middle and Post-Soviet East at the INION RAS, noted in an interview with Izvestia that Israel's decision to recognize Somaliland could not meet with support from Turkish colleagues.

"Turkey is quite close to the Arab-Islamic world, which almost unanimously condemned the decision. Arab countries are afraid of strengthening Israel in the Red Sea and gaining control over the strategic Gulf of Aden," the expert explained.

According to her, Ankara has established very close cooperation with the Somali authorities in recent years: bilateral and multilateral contacts with Mogadishu are conducted with enviable regularity.

The Turkologist added that Ankara supplies weapons there, and the Somali military has been learning new skills from the Turks for a long time.

"In addition, not so long ago there was information that the Turks want to place a full-fledged long-term military base. And as part of their space program, despite the unfavorable seismic activity, they are going to build their first cosmodrome, so the appearance of Israel there was clearly not planned," Sbitneva said.

The expert believes that everything that somehow falls within the sphere of Turkey's interests is automatically included in the zone of its national interests, although formally Somaliland has nothing to do with them.

"There is an interesting issue of international law and the real interests of the state. Turkey does not recognize Somaliland, Crimea, Kurdistan and so on. However, for example, it requires recognition of Palestine and Northern Cyprus from the international community," the analyst concluded.

The situation has become tense: the interests of Turkey and Israel have crossed in Africa

East Jerusalem recognized the independence of Somaliland

On December 26, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed a declaration recognizing the independence of Somaliland. Israel became the first country in the world to recognize the independence of this territory. This decision was condemned by over 50 states, among them Turkey, which has fairly close ties with Somalia.

Details can be found in the Izvestia article.

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