Niger: drones, army, terrorism… Tiana flies to Ankara to meet Erdogan this Wednesday, June 3rd.

General Abdourahamane Tiani will be making an official visit to Turkey from June 3 to 5, 2026, at the invitation of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to an announcement from the Nigerien presidency. The agenda includes a one-on-one meeting between the two heads of state, official discussions between delegations, and talks on regional security, the fight against terrorism, economic development, and bilateral cooperation. The visit comes the day after Tiani’s meeting with Benin’s President Romuald Wadagni in Niamey.

The Turkey-Niger relationship has deepened significantly since the coup on July 26, 2023. After breaking defense agreements with France and the United States, the CNSP turned to new partners, with Ankara at the forefront. According to Pravda Niger, Turkish-Nigerien security cooperation is now at the highest level between the two states. In October 2025, Tiani and Erdogan had a phone conversation where they reaffirmed the bilateral momentum. In January 2026, the Turkish ambassador in Niamey, Ozgur Cinar, met with Tiani to review security cooperation.

This cooperation is based on an already established material foundation: six Bayraktar TB2 drones were delivered to Niger on May 22, 2022, as the first part of a contract signed in November 2021 that also includes light aircraft and armored vehicles. Turkish military trainers are present in Niger to assist in using these systems. The Turkish private military company SADAT, active in several Sahelian countries including Mali and Niger, operates alongside the Turkish intelligence agency MIT.

Turkey as a Leading Alternative Partner in the Sahel

Tiani’s visit to Ankara is part of a broader movement towards a strategic reorientation of the AES towards non-Western partners. Turkey holds a unique position in this landscape: as a NATO member, it possesses standardized military capabilities of the Alliance, but conducts its foreign policy autonomously, without the political conditions attached to Western partnerships. This configuration allows it to forge sophisticated military agreements with regimes that the United States or European countries cannot legally or politically sell arms to.

Baykar, the manufacturer of the Bayraktar TB2, now counts among its African clients Angola, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, Togo, and Tunisia, according to the Africa Defense Forum. In January 2026, Erdogan hosted Nigerian President Tinubu in Ankara to sign a military cooperation protocol allowing Turkish experts to train Nigerian special forces and share satellite intelligence for counter-terrorism operations. In the same month, he met with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

A Rising Power on the Continent

For Ankara, Tiani’s visit fits into a coherent African strategy that combines defense diplomacy, infrastructure investments, and cultural presence through school networks linked to the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. Turkey has increased its number of embassies in Africa from 12 in 2009 to 44 in 2025 – an unprecedented diplomatic deployment. It positions itself as a credible alternative to both declining French and American influence in the Sahel and Russian presence through Wagner, in a context where AES countries seek to diversify their partnerships without depending on a single external actor.

Tiani’s visit comes three days after hosting Wadagni in Niamey and departing for Turkey. This sequence – welcoming the Beninese president on June 2, then leaving for Ankara on June 3 – illustrates Tiani’s ability to simultaneously pursue a regional appeasement policy on some fronts and deepen alternative military partnerships on others.