Turkey gains ground as the most attractive partner for Africa

After years of focusing its foreign policy on Europe, Turkey has been developing its strategy of autonomy to increase its international influence, making a decisive and planned shift towards Africa as the new course decreed under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. From the outset, the emphasis was on soft power, as seen in its humanitarian assistance to the famine in Somalia in 2011 and its participation in the Libyan civil war in 2019. 

Seeking to differentiate itself from the other models of Western and emerging powers, it follows a strategic and pragmatic line of diplomatic, military and mediation methods of cooperation in African conflicts.

Due to the progressive weakening and withdrawal of key powers in the region, such as France and the United States, a vacuum has been created that Ankara intends to fill in the face of the prominence of China and Russia in order to establish itself as the best option for the countries of the African continent that are going through a clear security crisis due to the rise of insurgent movements and terrorist groups, such as the regional influence of the Islamic State, Al-Shabaab in Somalia, Boko Haram in Nigeria and the LDR in Uganda, as well as internal tensions that require representatives to intervene to guarantee the search for solutions, as is the case in the situation in the Horn of Africa. 

The transcontinental country has a wide range of defence cooperation agreements throughout the continent, from West Africa with Nigeria and Ghana, to East Africa with Rwanda, Kenya, Somalia, Libya and Ethiopia. As well as being a strategic success for the country, it is also an opportunity for the development of its defence industry, especially with regard to drones, and a step forward for exports. 

For African countries, Turkey's proposal as a versatile partner beyond the defence area is significant. In the political arena it is being received as the only representation of a player that really cares about the interests and conflicts in the region and that is oblivious to the colonial past from which it is seeking to distance itself, a tool that gives the Eurasian country an emblematic value and greater popular approval. Likewise, the triumph of these new relations is due to Ankara's exhaustive involvement in various projects in the development, infrastructure and education sectors.

Indeed, the annual diplomatic forum in Antalya last April was a momentous opportunity for the expansion of the new Turkish proposal and the opening of direct channels of communication with the continent's leaders. The high attendance of officials demonstrates the acceptance of this new alternative, despite the fact that there is still a strong connection to the old alliances that are not intended to be contradicted, such as relations with France in certain countries. 

Another factor attracting attention to the Turkish Republic is its involvement in global crises such as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the unstable situation in Syria, all situations that Erdogan has calculated to increase his presence as a multifaceted actor, and positioning him as a possible mediator offering solutions to African needs. Furthermore, this has made it easier for Turkey to be seen as an equal partner, unlike other powers. 

Certainly, the countries of the continent are opting for multiple and diversified alignment to reduce dependence. Turkey, for its part, is taking advantage of this broad acceptance to enter various fields, being aware that, despite fragmentation and internal instability, Africa is a key to entry into the new world in a panorama of changing influences and hence the answer to why it is getting closer to North Africa, which has two regional rivals, Morocco and Algeria, and strengthening its relations with the two extremes of the continent.

Turkey is playing a strategic game in which it has introduced a narrative in which it presents itself as an Afro-Eurasian state as a means of getting closer to and reducing tensions with Africa. All this under the leadership of a presidency that seeks to revive the Ottoman heritage and that portrays Turkish nationalism in defence of the desire to fulfil its ambitions of becoming a dominant political actor. Erdogan is implementing this formula at the same time as the country is plunged into a situation of internal political crisis with the opposition, under the outbreak of strong social protests, as well as under a serious economic recession determined by debt. 

Erdogan is undoubtedly a shrewd character who is familiar with the dynamics that drive the international order and who does not hesitate to take a gamble in search of greater profit, despite the delicate context in which he finds himself.