The Turkey-Africa Bromance: Key Drivers, Agency, and Prospects.

• Author: Dahir, Abdinor
• Position: COMMENTARY

Introduction

The year 2021 has been so far a busy year for Turkey's growing Africa policy. Over 10 African leaders and heads of state, including the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Sudan's Sovereign Council chairman, and the African Union Commission chairperson, have visited Turkey. Reciprocally, in October, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has visited the three West African countries of Angola, Nigeria, and Togo where he also met with leaders of Burkina Faso and Liberia. In the same month, the Turkish metropolis Istanbul hosted the 3rd Africa-Turkey Economic and Business Forum that brought together around 2,000 participants, including representatives of 45 African countries, regional economic communities, and private sector representatives from both sides. The Forum, as well as Erdogan's recent Africa tour, were preparations for the 3rd Turkey-Africa partnership: a high-level gathering in Istanbul featuring heads of state and government from African countries and Turkey, representatives of regional economic communities and international organizations.

These are reflections of Turkey's deepening ties with Africa. Turkey-Africa relations have consistently exhibited strong growth since Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AK Party) came to power in 2002. Trade has reached $25 billion, Turkish Airlines flies to more destinations in the continent than any other airline and Ankara has 43 embassies across the continent. Moreover, the number of African embassies in Ankara is now 37, compared to 10 in 2008. Turkey presents itself as a global power-driven by an 'enterprising humanitarian' foreign policy that is seeking to develop partnerships, integration, and policies of mutual benefit with African countries and reverse what Turkish officials call remnants of colonial policies and exploitation by the West. In response, however, there is a tendency among critics of Turkey's renewed engagement with Africa to accuse Ankara of pursuing an aggressive neo-Ottoman agenda-often characterized as 'anti-western' and 'pan-Islamism'-in Africa.

What is driving the evolving Turkey-Africa partnership and what is Turkey trying to achieve in Africa? In addressing this question, this commentary focuses on four dimensions: An overview of Turkey's Africa initiative, a wide assessment of the Turkish engagement objectives on the continent, a discussion on African agency in the growing Turkish-African relations context, and a look at the future perspectives. These four dimensions help contextualize Turkey's rising influence in Africa, with particular reference to Sub-Saharan Africa, and the role of African governments and African non-state actors in shaping and determining the nature of the renewed Turko-African relations.

Tracing the 'Afro-Eurasian State' in Africa

Turkey has a long-term commitment to increasing its influence in Africa. The momentum of the current Turko-African relations began during the 1960s-also known as Africa's decade of decolonization. In 1968, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia paid a state visit to Turkey, which was reciprocated by President Cevdet Sunay the following year. By recognizing the newly independent African countries and supporting the decolonization process, Turkey wished to establish economic and political relations with Africa. As a result, Ankara has opened diplomatic missions in several African countries, including Ethiopia, Nigeria, Kenya, and Senegal. Turkey's ties with Sub-Saharan Africa, however, largely remained neglected in the following two decades due to the 1974 Cyprus crisis and a host of domestic political realities, including economic difficulties, repetitive military coups, and the rise of the PKK-led separatist movement.

Africa again featured Turkish foreign policy in the final years of the last century. In 1998, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs adopted the Africa Action Plan-a set of diplomatic, political, economic, and cultural programs designed to introduce Turkey to Africa and set the tone for a renewed Turkish activism in the Sub-Saharan region. The implementation of this ambitious plan was hindered by coalition government problems; and the 2000-2001 economic crises characterized by lower growth rates, higher interest rates, and a wave of capital outflows. Nevertheless, the plan was restored once the short-lived liquidity crisis was over and the current ruling AK Party came to power in 2002. In the following two decades, successive AK Party-led governments pursued an ambitious strategy for engagement with individual African countries and the continent as a whole. The 1998 plan was refurbished in 2003 with the initiation of the strategy for developing economic relations with Africa. However, the declaration of 2005 as the 'year of Africa' could be considered the turning point of Turkey's Africa policy and officially set the stage for Ankara's expanding Africa footprint characterized by increasing trade and investment, increasing diplomatic presence, consistent high-level visits, and Turkey-Africa partnership summits.

While the practical rationale and an assessment of Turkey's Africa policy achievements are discussed in the next section, it is paramount to theorize Ankara's renewed engagement in Sub-Saharan Africa-a region historically considered as a faraway periphery 'full of problems, hunger, diseases, and civil wars' among Turkish policymaking circles. (1) Although there might be several concepts to explain Turkey's return to Africa, I use the end of the Cold War and the emerging power theories to contextualize Turkey's renewed interest in Africa. Both concepts provide reasonable explanations for the extensive engagement of Turkey, which recently started to describe itself as an 'Afro-Eurasian state,' with the African continent. (2)

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent end of the Cold War in the early 1990s has had major repercussions for global...