Turkey shows a particular interest in promoting its relations with African countries. This was reflected in recent tours made by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the continent. Two months after his visits to Sudan, Chad and Tunisia between December 24 to 27, 2017, Erdogan embarked another tour from February 26 to March 2, 2018 that included Algeria, Mauritania, Senegal and Mali. 

Despite the significance of economic parameters for explaining reasons behind this special interest, it is not possible to negate the fact that other factors play a key role in this context. These include widening disagreement between Turkey and other world and regional powers involved in Middle East crises. Other reasons entail a decline in its ability to achieve its goals in Syria, escalating problems facing its economy, as well as increasing rejection of its meddling in the internal affairs of other countries in the region. 

Multiple Drivers 

Turkey’s interests in strengthening relations with African states can be outlined as follows: 

1- Establishing Strategic Partnerships: Ankara took several steps in this direction throughout the past years. Turkey declared 2005 as the “Year of Africa.” Three years later, in 2008, the first Turkey-Africa Strategic Partnership Summit was held in Istanbul and Turkey became a strategic partner of the African Union. The second Turkey-Africa Strategic Partnership Summit was held in Equatorial Guinea in November 2014. Moreover, the two sides plan to hold a third such summit  in Turkey in 2019. 

It should be noted that Erdogan’s tour to Africa early this year coincided with 10th anniversary of Turkey becoming the African Union’s strategic partner. On February 11-12, 2018, Istanbul hosted the Second Ministerial Review Conference of African Union – Turkey Partnership. 

2- Absorbing Pressures: Turkey seeks to establish relations with different regions of Africa. During his most recent visits to North Africa countries, President Erdogan described Algeria as a “an island of political and economic stability” in the Mediterranean and Africa. Later, he visited both Senegal and Mali, two West Africa countries.  

Apparently, Turkey seeks to promote ties with African countries to absorb strong pressures caused by unprecedented levels of tensions with world powers, especially the United States and European powers, involved in crises in the Middle East. Such pressures are due to conflicting approaches of both sides in dealing with regional issues of common interest.

3- Expanding the Scope of Economic Cooperation: Turkey seeks to elevate economic relations with African countries, especially after three of them, i.e. Ethiopia, Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire, became among the fastest growing economies in the world. Additionally, Africa is in possession of significant potential that is attractive to economic partnerships, whether at the level of trade or investment flow, due to its expanding markets and increasing purchasing power. 

Algeria is Turkey’s largest trading partner in Africa, and the fourth largest supplier of natural gas, behind Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran. Energy is estimated to account about 97 per cent of Algeria’s total exports to Turkey. This can explain why Ankara and Algiers, during Erdogan’s recent visit to Algeria, signed seven agreements and memorandums of understanding to promote relations in several areas including diplomacy, oil and gas, agriculture, tourism and higher education. 

Furthermore, Erdogan asked his prime minister Binali Yildirim, during the Turkey-Algeria Business Forum, to take immediate action to increase the volume of bilateral annual trade with Algeria from the current  level of USD 3.5 billion first to USD 5 billion, and to USD 10 billion, at a later stage. According to the Algerian National Agency of Investment Development, Turkey was the top foreign investor in Algeria during the first nine months of 2017. 

Moreover, Turkey and Senegal reportedly signed 28 agreements, while annual bilateral trade between the two countries reached USD 430 million.

Turkey and Mali signed 8 agreements to enhance investment and cooperation in areas such as IT, energy, mining, minerals industry, energy and hydrocarbons, healthcare, education, sports and religious affairs. 

4- Deepening Military Cooperation: Ankara’s bid to promote military relations with African countries was reflected in the opening of the Turkish military base in Somalia in September 2017, which includes three military residential complexes, training venues, arms and ammunition depots. The cost of the base is estimated at USD 50 million. 

5- Besieging the Gulen movement: Laying the siege on the Hizmet movement, established by Fethullah Gulen, tops the priorities on the agenda of Erdogan’s visit to African states where the movement had visible activity. Erdogan called for the closure of institutions affiliated with the movement. Some African states responded to his call, while others reached agreements with Turkey to transfer management responsibilities of such institutions to Turkish institutions.

Various Hurdles

Turkey’s endeavors to promote relations with African countries face no easy obstacles.

For one, goals that Turkey is working to achieve were met by some reservations in Africa. The reasons is that Turkey shows a keen interest to employ ideologically and historically-driven mechanisms, which caused growing controversy among some liberal and Islamist movements in these states about the potential trajectories of relations with Turkey.

This became evident in Algeria where secularist movements rejected Erdogan’s visit describing him as “unwelcomed” because of his measures against opposition forces. Other movements invoked history to describe Turkey’s policies and express their reservations.

However, the Movement of Society for Peace welcomed Erdogan’s visit and at the same time condemned “jubilation” about French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Algeria in December 2017. 

Secondly, there are growing fears in Africa about sectarian struggles moving to the continent, especially because Turkey, like other states, seeks to attract movements that support its presence in involved states through the establishment of cultural, educational institutions and social services in these states. This means that those expressing such fears view the Turkish policy as a major cause of exacerbation of these struggles and of blocking effort to settle them. 

A third obstacle emanates from Turkey’s ability to strike a balance with the influence of world powers, such as France, that demonstrate a special interest in promoting their relations with Africa. These powers perhaps view Ankara’s activities may impact or are at least not compatible with their own interests. Of course, this cannot be separated from widening disagreement between Ankara and Paris over certain issues. The most recent of which is Turkey’s operation in Afrin, which French President Emmanuel Macron, in statement on January 31, 2018,  said should not become an should not become an excuse to invade Syria. This represents a new sign of a recently widening gap of trust between Turkey and European states. 

To conclude, it can be argued that despite Turkish efforts to promote its relations with African states, trends of its foreign policy that caused widening disagreement with world and regional powers involved in the region, may limit its ability to achieve this objective.