August 19, 2021

Did the Turkish President offer to mediate an end to the Tigray conflict?

HAQCHECKFact checking

HaqCheck has rated the post as MISLEADING HEADLINE due to a false connection between the title and the actual content on Facebook.

Avatar: Hagos Gebreamlak
By Hagos Gebreamlak

A fact-checker at HaqCheck, he has worked for Fortune as a reporter previously.

Did the Turkish President offer to mediate an end to the Tigray conflict?

Al Jazeera English on August 19, 2021, shared an article on its Facebook page titled ‘Erdoğan offers to mediate an end to Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict’. 

The post was accompanied by a headline that reads: “Turkish president meets Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed but no specific agreements or deals have been announced.” The Facebook post was shared by over 437 users and received close to 3,000 reactions.

HaqCheck looked into the content in the website and confirmed that the article does not say that the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan did offer to mediate an end to Ethiopia's Tigray conflict. Therefore, HaqCheck rated the Facebook post MISLEADING HEADLINE due to the false connection between the post on Facebook and the article on the website.

The Ethiopian Prime Minister paid a one-day working visit to Turkey, Ankara, on August 18, 2021. He met his counterpart the Turkish President Erdogan to discuss bilateral and regional issues.

Erdogan said that he supports a peaceful resolution to Ethiopia's Tigray armed conflict.

The president said that he is willing to mediate between Ethiopia and Sudan to solve the ongoing border dispute in Al Fashaqa swaths of agricultural land.

In relation to the working visit of the Ethiopian Prime Minister to Ankara, Alarabiya English published a news article that reads that President Erdogan offered to help mediate an end to the Tigray conflict.

The Facebook post by Aljazeera then emerged with a headline “Erdogan offers to mediate an end to Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict. 

Image: the article on the website.

However, the article on the website doesn't say anything about the Turkish president’s offer to mediate an end to Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict. The article on the website is different in terms of title and content from the post on Facebook. The title of the article on the website reads “Erdogan backs peaceful resolution to Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict” and says Erdogan “...has backed a peaceful resolution to Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict that has displaced tens of thousands and left millions hungry”. It stated that Erdogan said Turkey was willing to mediate between Ethiopia and Sudan to resolve a separate border dispute.

Image: Associated Press

HaqCheck has therefore rated the post as MISLEADING HEADLINE due to the false connection between the title of the article shared on Facebook and the actual content of the article on the website.