Status: 16.12.2021 12:13 p.m.
Turkey has invited African heads of state and government to the multi-day summit. President Erdogan hopes that this will boost trade – and can score points with the guests in several ways.
The Turkish President Recep Erdogan has big plans for Africa: The volume of trade with Turkey with the African continent was around 25 billion US dollars in the previous year. It should be 50 billion by 2025, Erdogan announced after his last visit in October in the countries of Angola, Nigeria and Togo.
More international trade with whomever – that is a message these days that Erdogan will be happy to use to distract attention from the economic situation in Turkey. The frustration of his compatriots due to rapidly rising inflation and a rapid currency decline has increased significantly in recent weeks.
The signal should go out from the three-day Turkey-Africa summit that has now started in Istanbul: The government is successful in establishing international business contacts. Erdogan is lucky in the search for new markets – because a huge market with enormous potential is coming to him for the summit in Istanbul, writes the Turkish journalist Isin Elicin for a magazine financed by the SPD-affiliated Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
Access to the Gülen network
And in fact, Ankara has been able to significantly expand its network in Africa in recent years. Since 2003, the Turkish head of government has visited 30 African countries – more than any other counterpart. In 2008 the African Union declared Turkey a strategic partner. Since 2009, the number of Turkish embassies on the continent has increased from 12 to 43. Most of the state-owned airline Turkish Airlines flies to 61 destinations in 39 African countries. Istanbul Airport has become one of the most important international hubs for flights to and from Africa.
So far, these have mainly been investments, but they are paying off step by step. Turkish companies are building the national mosque in Ghana, the international airport in Niger, large sports facilities in Senegal and Rwanda and a rail network in Tanzania.
Erdogan’s influence on the continent also meant that the government-affiliated Turkish Maarif Foundation, with the support of the respective governments, was able to take over numerous schools that the sect-like Gülen network maintained there until 206. Ankara accuses Gülen of orchestrating the attempted coup in July 2016 and brought the authorities to crackdown abroad as well: Heads and teachers at the Gülen schools were ousted or even arrested by those who were loyal to the government.
Military and Oil in Somalia
Erdogan also considers Africa to be geostrategically relevant. In Somalia, the Turkish military has its largest camp outside of the home. Turkish soldiers train Somalis there. That is why the Islamist terrorist group Al-Shabaab keeps targeting Turks. Turkish citizens were killed and injured several times in attacks in Somalia.
A high political risk for Erdogan. But at the beginning of last year, the Turkish head of government announced that Mogadishu had invited Turkey to look for oil in Somali waters. Ankara has sold Turkish combat drones to Ethiopia and the military engagement in Libya could one day provide access to Libyan oil and gas.
Islam as a common ground
Turkey competes in Africa with China and France, among others. Turkey has an advantage above all in countries with a high proportion of Muslims, says the Africa expert Mesut Hamani Massoud of the think tank “Institute for Strategic Thinking” in Ankara: The common religion is an advantage when developing cooperation.
When he meets with African heads of government, Erdogan always tries to give them the feeling that one is speaking on an equal footing. He does not interfere in internal affairs and he also saves himself the lectures that Europeans like to give on democracy and against corruption. That works – because many Africans, on the other hand, perceive France as a colonial power and China as a giant that only has its own interests in mind, says Massoud.
It is questionable whether Erdogan’s commitment to Africa and the summit will pay off domestically. He wants to give a speech on Saturday. Isin Elicin writes that it is not certain whether his words will attract a lot of attention from the Turkish population: because most of them are busy counting the little money they have at their disposal in order to calculate what they can buy with it.