Selcan Karabektaş, doctoral student at Grenoble Alpes University and researcher at CERDAP2
Since the Turkish government's Plan for Openness in Africa, launched in 1998, Turkish-African relations have developed into a form of strategic partnership, which has become one of the key objectives of Turkish foreign policy. Against this backdrop, the third edition of the Turkey-Africa Summit was held in Istanbul on December 17 and 18, 2021, under the theme "Enhanced Partnership for Mutual Development and Prosperity".
Having become an observer member of the African Union (AU) in 2005, Turkey, a new player on the continent, held the first of these summits in Istanbul in 2008, and the second in Malabo (Equatorial Guinea) in 2014. In reality, this third summit was originally scheduled for 2019, but Egypt (a country with which Ankara has difficult relations) held the presidency of the AU, and because of the pandemic, it was postponed once again until 2020.
A large shareholding and an increasingly institutional structure
Sixteen African heads of state attended the summit, including Félix Tshisekedi, the current Chairman of the AU, Macky Sall, President of Senegal, Nana Akufo-Addo, President of Ghana, Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda, Emmerson Mnangagwa, President of Zimbabwe and Muhammadu Buhari, President of Nigeria. They were accompanied by 102 ministers, including 26 foreign ministers, and other African officials who took part in the scheduled activities. In all, 39 of the 55 countries that make up the African Union were represented. Held two months after an economic forum focusing on investment and trade, this summit was primarily intended to strengthen Turkish-African cooperation and take stock of projects undertaken since the previous summit.
During the meeting, however, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stressed that it was "a disgrace to humanity" that only 6% of the African population was vaccinated against Covid-19, and announced that Turkey would be sending African countries 15 million doses of Turkovac, a vaccine developed by Turkish scientists that has just been licensed as a matter of urgency, over the coming months.
The program also included sessions on agriculture, development and the defense industry. This work made it possible to the objectives of Turkish-African cooperation for the next five years, with years, with projects directly involving the private sector. private sector. A " Joint Turkey-Africa Partnership Action Plan 2021-2026 " focusing on investments and security, has been drawn up for the period 2021-2026. It be implemented jointly by Turkey, the AU and its member states. member states. A memorandum of understanding on cooperation was also signed between Turkey and the secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area (ZLECA). The year 2026 has been set as the date for the next summit, to be held this time in Africa.
Why is Turkey Turkey so interested in Africa?
Over the past two decades, in its search for new areas of influence, Ankara has invested heavily in Africa, both economically and diplomatically. Turkey's African policy is the preserve of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who to date has made 38 trips to 28 African countries. Whereas the Turkish state had just twelve embassies in the whole of Africa in 2002, today the country has a total of 43 diplomatic missions on the continent. Conversely, Ankara now hosts 37 African embassies.
This high density of political-diplomatic relations has also borne fruit on the economic front. The opening of embassies has been followed by the establishment of numerous Turkish companies and commercial institutions in Africa. According to data from TUIK (Turkish Institute of Statistics), the volume of trade between Turkey and the African continent, which was just 4.3 billion in 2002, reached almost 25 billion dollars in 2020. The Council for Foreign Economic Relations (DEİK), a body under the Ministry of Trade, has established joint business councils with 45 African countries, 40 of which are sub-Saharan African. Turkish Airlines currently flies to over 60 African destinations in 30 countries across the continent.
Turkish soft power and Erdoğan's neo-Ottomanist rhetoric have thus paid off. their fruits. But various factors are slowing down Turkish initiatives. Going through economic crisis, Turkey's financial resources are dwindling, which which is hampering the development of long-term projects. More Ankara is experiencing difficulties in launching continent-wide policies on a continent-wide scale, and has to give priority to African countries with which it has historical ties. The Turkish government is thus trying to strengthen its relations with North African countries, correcting the sometimes the sometimes unfavorable legacy of the Ottoman Empire. It is also relations with East Africa, with its large Muslim populations, using religious using religious arguments. The active involvement of the construction of mosques by the Presidency of Religious Affairs(Diyanet işleri başkanlığı), the public body that manages Turkey's majority Sunni is indicative of this policy and its orientations.
The Turkish dilemma in Africa, between soft power and hard power
On another note, Turkey, which has had a military base in Somalia since 2017, continues to expand its defense footprint in Africa, promoting its military equipment to African countries. At present, the latter are very interested in drones. Morocco and Tunisia, which ordered Turkish combat drones several months ago, began receiving them in September 2021. This interest is the result of the Turkish army's intervention in Libya in 2020. The use of UAVs helped to repel the Libyan National Army (LNA) offensive and turn the tide of battle in favor of the Tripoli government.
No wonder then that SIHAs(Silhalı insansız Hava Arıcı - armed unmanned aerial vehicles), Turkey's combat drones, were one of the main topics of discussion on Erdoğan's tour of Africa last October, for it seems that to achieve his goal of tripling the volume of Turkish-African trade before the Republic's centenary celebrations in 2023, the Turkish president is counting heavily on accelerating defense exports (notably the sale of SIHAs). It has to be said that many African states are faced with secession movements or jihadist rebellions, making them a potential market for the sale of weapons and armed drones.
However, it may be difficult to become a major arms supplier without also giving the impression of interfering in the internal affairs of African countries. This growing military orientation could therefore undermine the favorable image of Turkish soft power (based on economic cooperation and humanitarian aid), which has gained ground in Africa over the last two decades. It is true that this evolution of Turkey's African policy is not without domestic political concerns either, as it aims to reinforce the image of a strong country, capable of capitalizing on its new technological assets, in the eyes of the electorate in 2023 (the date of the next general elections in Turkey).