Turkish-mediated talks between government and opposition end without agreement

A second round of Turkish-mediated talks between the federal government and the opposition closed without a settlement, after Puntland and Jubaland withdrew and questioned Ankara's neutrality as a mediator.

Türkiye's convening power in the Horn is not in doubt. The Ankara process between Somalia and Ethiopia showed that it can bring parties to a table others could not. Applying that capacity to an internal Somali dispute is a different exercise.

The mediator is also the largest security partner

Türkiye trains Somali units, maintains its largest overseas military training facility in Mogadishu, and has expanded into maritime and energy cooperation. Those are federal relationships, negotiated with Villa Somalia and delivering capability to federal forces.

For the member states, that is the objection: a partner whose programmes strengthen one party to the dispute cannot easily guarantee an agreement between the parties. The complaint is structural rather than a comment on any Turkish official's conduct.

Mediation is available, enforcement is not

The episode repeats the pattern visible in every recent Somali political round. External actors can convene, host and draft. None has accepted the role the member states are actually asking for: standing behind an agreement after it is signed, and bearing a cost when it is broken.

Until some actor accepts that role — or until Somali parties build a domestic enforcement mechanism, such as constitutional arbitration with real authority — rounds of mediation will continue to end where this one did.