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Turkish parliament has approved a presidential motion to extend the deployment of Turkish Armed Forces in Somalia for an additional two years beginning July 27, authorizing troops to support the country's efforts against terrorism, piracy, illegal fishing, smuggling and other security threats, including operations within Somalia's maritime jurisdiction.
The motion, submitted to parliament by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was debated in the Grand National Assembly's General Assembly session on Tuesday.
The mandate renewal extends a deployment framework first authorized in 2024 and covers jointly determined areas on land and at sea, with the scope, scale and timing left to presidential discretion.
The presidential motion underscored that Türkiye has maintained broad political, social, economic and security cooperation with the Federal Government of Somalia since 2011.
It cited a series of bilateral agreements, including frameworks on military training, defense industry cooperation and military financial collaboration, as the legal basis for ongoing training, advisory and assistance activities.
The motion noted that while Somali defense and security forces possess adequate personnel and resources, economic constraints have prevented them from fully performing their duties.
The Federal Government of Somalia formally requested Turkish military support under the terms of a defense and economic cooperation framework agreement, seeking assistance against terrorism, piracy, illegal fishing and trafficking.
The mandate renewal also references a December 1, 2023 United Nations Security Council resolution on Somalia's counterterrorism efforts, situating the deployment within a broader international framework.
The motion described the deployment's aims as helping Somalia secure its economic resources, stabilize a region critical to Turkish maritime trade, and reinforce Türkiye's contributions to counterterrorism and anti-piracy efforts in the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea and surrounding waters.
Fatih Donmez, the ruling AKP deputy from Eskisehir and a former energy minister, argued that viewing the motion purely as a foreign policy or security matter would be reductive.
"This motion is a testament to the trust placed in Türkiye's commercial and security diplomacy," he said, adding that it reflects the country's broader Africa outreach and its growing global role over the past two decades.
Ismail Ozdemir of the MHP, speaking in support, said Türkiye's engagement had fundamentally altered Somalia's trajectory, bringing humane living conditions to Mogadishu in contrast to what he called the extractive logic of colonial powers.
He also noted that the construction of a space launch facility in Somalia represented another strategic dimension of the bilateral relationship, and confirmed his party would vote in favor of the motion.
Yeni Yol Party deputy Cemalettin Kani Torun, also supporting the extension, said Türkiye's presence in Somalia had never been driven by imperial ambitions.
"It was guided by an understanding that helped a collapsed state get back on its feet, strengthened its institutions and supported its self-sufficiency," he said.
Torun nonetheless cautioned that Somalia had moved beyond its earliest state-building phase and that the more pressing challenges now were democratic consolidation and political legitimacy, warning that "the greatest mistake in such periods is attempting to govern politics through security methods."
The motion drew sharp criticism from opposition lawmakers who questioned the lack of publicly available information about the underlying agreements and the potential for Turkish forces to be drawn into active combat.
Namik Tan, a CHP deputy from Istanbul and a former ambassador, said his party had consistently supported peacekeeping and counterterrorism mandates but objected to the basis of this one.
"You are placing a motion before us that rests on an agreement whose contents we have still been unable to learn, two and a half years after it was signed," he said.
Tan also questioned the decision to issue two-year mandates rather than annual renewals, arguing that the region's rapidly shifting threat environment, including the ongoing conflict in Yemen, tensions between Somalia, Somaliland and Ethiopia, and persistent piracy, demanded more frequent parliamentary oversight.
Turhan Comez of the IYI Party, speaking against the motion, warned that escalating clashes between Al-Shabaab militants and Somali forces posed a direct risk to any Turkish troops deployed there.
He pressed for answers on whether Turkish soldiers could be forced into combat with the militant group and what the financial and strategic return of the mission had been across its previous iterations, asking specifically whether aircraft such as helicopters or F-16s would be included in the deployment.
Sevilay Celenk of the DEM Party said her bloc had never been able to obtain figures on the number of Turkish troops stationed in Somalia and argued the motion reflected a foreign policy increasingly oriented around military means. "Peace cannot be achieved by strengthening militarist capacity," she said, adding that her party believed security was built through diplomacy, democratic governance and equitable distribution of resources.
During the session, Comez also reported that four students at the Yalova 18th Main Base Command of the National Defense University had suffered heatstroke, one of whom had died.
Several deputies from different parties offered condolences and called for precautions against the heat.
Alongside the Somalia mandate, the General Assembly approved an AKP procedural motion setting the order of upcoming legislative business.
Priority was given to an omnibus bill that includes a provision raising the minimum retirement pension, followed by higher education reform legislation covering a student amnesty provision, and then a host country agreement related to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, its Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement Secretariat.
Parliament was scheduled to continue work through Friday if the bills are not completed before the end of the week.
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