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Abstract
As a rapidly growing emerging economy, Turkey has been expanding its foreign policy horizons to the countries of the Middle East, but also to Latin America, Asia and specifically to Africa. Using its historic links and Muslim heritage, as well as its dynamic private sector and non-governmental organisations, Turkey has since 2005 been working to strengthen its ties with the countries of sub-Saharan Africa. The success of this outreach to Africa can be measured in increasing trade and investment, transport links especially in air services, African support for Turkey's bid for a non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council, the number of African embassies being established in Ankara and new Turkish embassies in African capitals, and the new seriousness with which African leaders view Turkey. Turkey is competing with traditional and emerging actors for a role in Africa. In the process it is worrying some of Africa's traditional partners. But Africa can benefit from what Turkey can bring to the relationship while posing no geopolitical threat to the continent.
Notes
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3. Davutoğlu A, ‘Fostering a culture of harmony’, Russia in Global Affairs, 8, 1, January–March 2010, as an example.
4. Ali Kemal Aydin's article entitled ‘Turkey and South Africa: Towards the second decade’ for Perceptions: The Journal of the Center for Strategic Research of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, in its March–May 2003 edition gives a clear description of those relations to that point. A monograph by the author of this article, published to coincide with the 2005 visit of the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to South Africa in March 2005, surveys the relationship from the Ottoman period to the date of publication.
5. Shaw SJ, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Volume 1, Empire of the Gazis, Chapter 4, The Apogee of Ottoman Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976, reprint 1995, pp. 96 et seq.
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9. The writer was present at the ceremony.
10. Bloomberg report, TUSKON President Says the Way of Business in Turkey has Changed, 14 September 2010.
11. Inat K, ‘Republic of Turkey’ in Geiler W, K Inat & C Kullman (eds) Foreign Policy of States: A Handbook on World Affairs. Istanbul: TASAM Publications No 8, p. 501.
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13. Original text supplied by the South African honorary consul in Izmir, Mr Tamer Taşkin.
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15. Sheridan M & R Boudreaux, ‘As buildings fell in Turkey, so did illusions: Earthquake: Disaster laid bare massive corruption. Many now try to fight City Hall’, 5 September 1999, <http://articles.latimes.com/1999/sep/05/news/mn-7205>.
16. See also Tepe S. ‘Turkey's AKP: A model “Muslim-Democratic” Party?’, Journal of Democracy, 16, 3, July 2005, pp. 69–82.
17. Davutoğlu A, ‘Fostering a culture of harmony’, Russia in Global Affairs, 8, 1, January–March 2010, pp. 97–98.
18. Pope H, ‘Pax Ottomana: The mixed success of Turkey's new foreign policy’, Foreign Affairs, November/December 2010; also D'Urso D, ‘Shifting Turkey: Ankara's new dynamics under the AKP government’, Portuguese Journal of International Affairs, Spring/Summer 2010; Matthews O, ‘Ankara in the middle’, Newsweek, 2 August 2010. Several discussions on the subject took place at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, including on 30 March 2010, 3 June and 13 July 2010, and published on the Council's website. Newsweek of 2 August 2010 featured two articles on Turkey's new foreign policy, by Denis McShane and Owen Matthews, pp. 14 and 18–21. A special report on Turkey in The Economist of 23 October 2010 also gives a balanced assessment of this new trend in Turkish foreign policy, its causes and its objectives. Mustafa Akyol in a Review Essay, ‘An unlikely trio’, in Foreign Policy September–October 2010, pp. 124–29 gives a very lucid summary of the development of Turkish foreign policy.
20. The Journal of Turkish Weekly, ‘Turkish President Gul to visit Kenya and Tanzania’, 19 February 2009, <http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/64790/turkish-president-gul-to-visit-kenya-and-tanzania.html>; Nicole Sobecki, ‘Turkey seeks economic salvation in Africa’, Global Post, 11 March 2009, <http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/turkey/090309/turkey-seeks-economic-salvation-africa>; <www.mfa.gov.tr/turkey-africa-realtions.en.mfa>.
21. The Economist, ‘Ottoman dreaming: The Turks have new ambitions for trade and influence in Africa’, 27 March 2010.
22. Wheeler T, Turkey's Outreach to Africa, 25 August 2008, <www.saiia.org.za/diplomatic-pouch/turkey-s-outreach-to-africa.html >; Ozkan M, ‘Turkey discovers Africa: implications and prospects’, Today's Zaman, 12 September, 2008, <http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=152938>.
23. Mlambo-Ngcuka, Phumzile, Deputy President of the Republic of South Africa, Address to the Turkey–Africa Cooperation Summit, 19 August 2008, <http:www.polity.org.za/articles/sa-mlambongcuka-address-at-africa-turkey-summit>.
24. Turkey–African Partnership Summit Declaration Issued, <http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=26942>, as cited in Ozkan M, Turkey Discovers Africa: Implications and Prospects, SETA Policy Brief No 22, September 2008.
25. Author's conversation with former Namibian permanent representative to the UN in New York Ambassador Kaire Mbuende on 1 February 2011.
26. Juma J, ‘Turkey–Africa ties: Is Africa ready’, African Executive, 13 November 2009, <http://www.africanexecutive.com/modules/magazine/articles.php?article=3497>; also Turkey – Africa Ties: African Union a Big Letdown’, African Executive, accessed 3 February 2011, <http://www.africanexecutive.com/modules/magazine/articles.php?article=3477>.
27. A brief history of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey, accessed 16 October 2010, <www.mfa.gov.tr/turkey-africa-relations.en.mfa>.
28. <www.mfa.gov.tr/resident-diplomatic-and-consular-missions.en.mfa>, accessed 23 October 2010.
29. For example ‘Turkey to intensify ties with Zambia’, Daily News and Economic Reviews, <http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=turkey-to-intense-ties-with-zambia-2010-07-12>.
30. <http://www.mfa.gov.tr/turkey_s-relations-with-the-united-nations.en.mfa> accessed 3 February 2011.
31. AU Monitor, ‘Turkey–Africa Cooperation Summit’, accessed 10 April 2010, <http://www.pambazuka.org/aumonitor/comments/1646>.
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33. ‘Turkey host UN-sponsored conference on Somalia’, Voice of America, 21 May 2010, <www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/east/Turkey-Hosts-UN-Sponsored-Conference-on-Somalia-94603074.html>.
34. Pham J, ‘Turkey's Return to Africa’, World Defense Review, 27 May 2010, <http://worlddefensereview.com/pham052710.shtml>.
35. TIKA, <http://www.tika.gov.tr/en/Icerik.ASP?ID=323>.
36. Bardakoğlu A, ‘The state and religion in Modern Turkey’, paper presented at a conference held by the University of Chicago, The Center for Middle Eastern Studies, USA, 13 April 2005, <http://www.diyanet.gov.tr/english/default.asp>.
37. Kurkut S, The Diyanet of Turkey and Its Activities in Eurasia after the Cold War, < http://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/publictn/acta/28/06Korkut.pdf>.
38. World Bulletin report, 5 November 2006.
39. Ozkan M & R Akgun, ‘Turkey's opening to Africa’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 48, 4, December 2010, pp. 525–46.
40. Van der Merwe S, Deputy Minister, speech at the Turkish national day reception, 29 October 2010. Text provided by the Department of International Relations and Co-operation.
41. <http://flightafrica.blogspot.com/2010/07/destination-africais-turkish-airlines.html>. See also extracts from THY's in-flight magazine, SkyLife, May 2007, ‘Turkish Airlines reaches out to South Africa’, which reads: Following the Turkish Foreign Ministry's declaration of 2005 as ‘the year of Africa’, Turkish Airlines in 2006 introduced new routes in Africa to the Sudanese capital Khartoum, the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa and to Nigeria's biggest city Lagos, as well as contributing to joint flights to Kenya. After suspending flights to South Africa in March 2003, Turkish Airlines aims now, in light of changing and developing conditions, to add Johannesburg and Cape Town to its flight network by mid-September of this year [2007], thereby extending its service to the farthest corners of the continent.’
42. Figures provided by the trade section of the South African embassy in Ankara. Also <http://www.pambazuka.org/aumonitor/comments/1646>.
43. South African Turkish Business Association, <www.satba.org>.
44. Uchehara KE, describes the first four of these congresses in his 2008 article ‘Continuity and change in Turkish foreign policy towards Africa’, <www.ataum.gazi.tr/e107_files/sayi3>.
45. Gueli R & O Kase, ‘Turkey ready to befriend Africa, written after their participation in the Third International Turkish — African Congress in December 2007’, Sunday Independent, 10 February 2008, <http://www.iol.co.za/news/world/turkey-ready-to-befriend-africa-1.388625>.
46. The foundation achieved notoriety in May 2010 when its flotilla of six ships with relief supplies for Gaza was intercepted under controversial circumstances by Israeli forces.
48. Turgut P, ‘The preacher and his teachers’, Time magazine, 26 April 2010, pp. 28–31.
49. The Economist, ‘Ottoman dreaming, Turkey and Africa’, 27 March 2010, p. 30.
50. Women in the Fetullah Gulen movement are expected to fulfil the roles of wife and mother and to wear headscarves, a mode of dress frowned on by Turkish secularists and banned in government institutions, including universities.
51. Wheeler T, Turkey and South Africa: Development of Relations 1860–2005. SAIIA Report No 47, p. 51, <http://www.saiia.org.za/images/stories/pubs/saiia_reports/saia_rep_47_turkey_2005.pdf>, p. 23.
52. I am indebted to blogger Annabel Raw for bringing this pressure group to my attention. Her blog: <http://www.africanscene.co.za/2010/11/brothers-in-arms-the-anc-and-the-pkk/>.
53. Wheeler, Turkey and South Africa: Development of Relations 1860–2005. SAIIA Report No 47, p. 51, <http://www.saiia.org.za/images/stories/pubs/saiia_reports/saia_rep_47_turkey_2005.pdf>, pp. 17–21.
54. Wheeler, Turkey and South Africa: Development of Relations 1860–2005. SAIIA Report No 47, p. 51, <http://www.saiia.org.za/images/stories/pubs/saiia_reports/saia_rep_47_turkey_2005.pdf>, pp. 13–16.
55. Department of International Relations and Cooperation, ‘Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe arrives in Ankara, Turkey on two day official visit’, <http://www.dfa.gov.za/docs/2010/turk0524.html>; South African Government Information, ‘Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe concludes official visit to Turkey’, <http://www.info.gov.za/speeches/2010/10052709551001.htm>; Politicsweb, ‘Motlanthe on Africa Day’, <http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71656?oid=177864&sn=Detail>; Wheeler T, ‘Visit of Deputy President Motlanthe to Turkey’, SATBA Bulletin, November 2010.
56. South African Business, ‘Invest in SA's economy — Motlanthe’, <http://www1.myza.co.za/business/2010/05/26/invest-in-sas-economy-motlanthe/>.
57. Speech text provided by the Department of International Relations and Co-operation.
58. Text provided by the Turkish Embassy.
59. Statistics extracted from the monthly reports of the trade section of the South African embassy in Ankara.