7 minute read
GEOPOLITICS
TURKEY: MISSION AFRICA!
With its expanding economic presence in Africa, Turkey is sending strong signals to other extra-regional players of its will to venture out of its traditional sphere of influence.
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SYNERGIA FOUNDATION
RESEARCH TEAM
Turkey is living through an economic nightmare, with soaring prices of essentials pushing inflationary trends and leading to rapidly declining purchasing power of citizens. The long lines outside discounted bread kiosks have led to a public outcry, and clashes have erupted on the streets. The rapidly depreciating lira underscores the deep dependence of the Turkish economy on international financial markets.
While the roots of Ankara’s economic worries go deep, the immediate trigger for the current crisis appears to be President Erdogan’s insistence on lowering interest rates in the face of soaring inflation. His pro-growth strategies, based upon exorbitant infrastructure projects financed by foreign investments, had placed Turkey in an enviable position in the past. But a relentless push to expand based on steady borrowing has become unsustainable. Now, when the economic situation does not present a rosy picture anymore, all other parameters are under question too.
EYES ON AFRICA
Turkey has traditionally been a major international trading partner, but its growing footprint in Africa, in particular, has drawn global attention. Its links with the Continent go back in history, right from the times of the Ottoman Empire when it had controlled the entire coastline of Northern Africa from Cairo to Algiers. The Ottoman Empire had provided Turkey with routes into both the Middle East as well as North Africa. However, these ties fluctuated with the rise and fall of its own fortunes and reigning economic realities of the period.
Since 2002, Turkey has emphasised its engagement with Africa as one of the country’s main pillars under its humanitarian and multi-dimensional foreign policy. It declared 2005 as the ‘Year of Africa’ within the framework of the Africa Action Plan adopted in 1998. Its expansion into the Continent worked through three main pillars: Economic policies, expansion of diplomatic missions, and humanitarian assistance. This soft power approach has paid dividends; its spontaneous humanitarian response to the COVID-19 afflicted African countries, despite its own serious infection rates, reinforced trust and mutual support.
The Turkey-Africa Partnership Summit in Istanbul in December 2021 was attended by more than a dozen African countries, reflecting the country’s significance. Currently, Turkey’s Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEIK) has 45 business councils in African countries with a focus on promoting bilateral trade and mutual investment. Turkey’s total trade volume with Africa has expanded from 3 billion dollars in 2003 to 26 billion dollars in 2021.
President Recep Erdogan’s statement - “a fairer world is possible”, is symbolic of Turkey’s approach to Africa as a partnership based on an ‘equal and humanitarian basis.’ This relationship is based on a host of motivations, from
cultural to economic to geopolitical.
The fast-growing trade has been centred in Northern Africa, but now is being spread Southwards to Sahara. Turkey’s fi rst military base in Somalia - its fi rst in Africa and the largest of its overseas bases is a sign of intent. Somalia isn’t the only troubled African state where Turkey is showing support. Sudan has also received strong support from the country.Soft diplomacy has made active inroads into Africa. Turkish diplomatic presence has increased fourfold from 12 embassies (in 2009) to 42 (in 2019). These embassies work to enhance its diplomatic missions and make swift progress in ‘trade, investment, cultural projects, security and military cooperation, development projects.’ Turkish African overtures have worked through schools and mosque diplomacy—two core instruments of Erdogan’s Islamic soft power.
Turkey is presenting a strong alternative to Western countries that have colonial overtones in their engagement with Africa. “The Ottoman’s struggle against the colonial powers is well known and appreciated by the African people,”’ claims Mr Ibrahim Alegoz, from Ibn Haldun University, Istanbul. In economic terms, Turkey is bargaining on the strength of its products being ‘cheaper than the West and yet more durable than China.’ It is an eff ort to establish a ‘win-win’ proposition for both Ankara and Africa, based on a mutual partnership.
GEOPOLITICAL COMPETITIONS
Africa has emerged as a site of keen global competition with major powers vying for a share in the continent’s natural resources and development story. This focus, along with the shifting big power alignments, has catapulted Turkey’s reputation as a near rival for China in Africa, outpacing even the U.S. How the U.S. responds to such assertions is yet to be seen. In hindsight, it may appear that the U.S. might have faltered by excluding both Turkey and Zimbabwe from the Democracy Summit held earlier. As Africa moves away from an era of global U.S. pre-eminence, Biden is coming to terms with the repercussions of keeping a low priority on Africa for decades. Turkey is fi lling this gap.
Ankara’s growing footprint in Africa marks a geopolitical realignment of powers in the region. Its strategy is more akin to China’s eff orts in the Continent, as it focuses on mutual partnership as opposed to eff orts by the U.S. and Europe who focus on democratic violations. China stands out through its aggressive investments and fi nancing of mega projects in the region. Angola is an example of a country that has at least 20 billion in debt and is struggling to repay and has instead given concessions to China in its agriculture, animal husbandry and tourism sectors. This growing footprint has not gone unnoticed by others, but is not a policy that other countries can easily imitate. Now there are more to the party as Japan, China, and Russia have increased interests in the region, along with the Western powers.
In its prominent international avatar in Africa, Turkey is increasingly taking its place on the world stage as a bigger actor and remains ‘an indispensable ally of the United States’, U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Jeff rey Flake recently said. This, despite the host of disagreements on various issues between the two countries.Turkey has also cemented its global stature with the role it has played in Syria and Libya, where it took Russian military might head-on and humbled it considerably.
This was further reinforced last year when its active support to Azerbaijan won the latter a distinct victory over Armenia in the confl ict over Nagorno-Karabakh and forced Russia to invite Turkey in the subsequent peace talks. Even in the ongoing Russian-Ukraine faceoff , Turkey’s support to Ukraine has been welcomed by the western world. As Turkey tries to manage its economy and fragile condition domestically, it would be apt to say that ‘Turkey is in search of itself—at home and abroad.’
Turkey-Africa trade volume expands nearly 5-fold
Turkey’s trade potential with African countries, which are expected to play a more active role in the international system from the second half of the 21st century, is increasing day by day.
Top 5 Sub-Saharan Countries in Turkey’s Exports (2020, US Dollar)
Sudan $630 mn
TURKEY’S DIRECT INVESTMENT IN AFRICA $6 BILLION
TURKEY-AFRICA
FOREIGN TRADE VOLUME 2003 $5.4 billion 2020 $25.3 billion
TRADE WITH SUB-SAHARAN COUNTRIES
2003 $1.35 billion 2020 $10 billion
Ivory Coast Ghana
$630 mn $630 mn
Source: ANADOLU AGENCY
Nigeria $630 mn
South Africa $630 mn
TURKISH CONTRACTORS’ INVESTMENTS $71.1 BILLION
SYNERGIA FOUNDATION
Assessment
With approaching elections and an economy teetering on the edge, Turkey’s president has considerable problems to tackle. Whether Turkey will be able to maintain its soft diplomacy in Africa amidst its internal squabbles remains to be seen and much depends on how the economic situation pans out.
But the question remains, in a region beset with global competition, will Turkey be able to maintain its grip over a continent that is plagued by coups and brutal self serving dictators? More so, when it is pitted against global powers including the U.S., UK, France, and China.
However, there is hope for the Turks, as despite its internal contradictions, Ankara has been successful in projecting its infl uence far beyond its shores, thanks to its geography. Even while openly opposing the U.S. and Russia on several counts, both major powers have sought its concurrence in various international matters. Not surprisingly, Turkey was to be given the responsibility of securing the Kabul airport for the safe exit of the U.S. from Afghanistan, if the Ashraf Ghani government had not collapsed so suddenly.
