Evropejskij Issledovatelʹ (Nov 2016)
Main Dynamics of Turkish-African Relations in the 21st Century
Abstract
This paper is focused on an overview of Turkey’s increased engagement towards Africa, especially in terms of its potentials, future perspectives and limits of the relations. It portrays and examines the main essence of Turkey’s foreign policy in Africa, and equally analyses the main reason or aspects behind the relations with Africa within the 21st century. It tries to answer the questions of why Turkey has so much interest in Africa now. In other words, it explores more the economic interaction (diplomacy) that fosters the relations between Turkey and Africa in the 21st century. It equally shows the economic aspects as key instrument in building relations between Turkey and Africa. This continent known as Africa in the 90s was never a concern to Turkey as it is in this 21st century, since Turkey paid more attention to its relations with the West, and its close neighbors like Middle East, Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia. It discusses some of the main political, economic, religious, cultural and strategic motivations behind Turkey’s interest in Africa, as well as some of the challenges face along the line in the 21st century. This paper consists of three main sections. The first section presents the relations between Turkey and Africa during Ottoman Empire, Turkish foreign policy toward Africa in Cold War period. It also gives an overview of Turkey’s relations with Africa, Turkey’s policy in Africa and the main elements shaping relations between Turkey and Africa. Then, the various approaches, mainly economic diplomacy approach in maintaining relations between Turkey and Africa in the 21st century are presented.Turkey’s increasing use of soft power strategies drive a great desire to tie both the economy of Turkey and Africa more closely. From the aforementioned, Turkey’s soft power content ranges from professional and cultural exchange, agriculture, and humanitarian assistance.
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