Africa Up Close

South Africa’s then Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, and Turkey’s then Prime Minister Erdogan, signed the South Africa-Turkey Bi-National Commission in 2012. Photo courtesy of the Government of South Africa via Flickr Commons.  

Turkey is getting ready to hold its third Turkey-Africa Summit, probably this April, in the framework of its eye-catching Africa partnership policy. Launched in the early 2000s, this policy is widely considered successful given Turkey’s prior near-absence from the continent for almost a century. However, two major dynamics negatively impact this engagement. First is Turkey’s increasing involvement in the Middle East’s conflicts, starting from 2011. And second is the internal rift between the Turkish government and the socio-religious movement led by Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric who has lived in self-imposed exile in the U.S. since 1999, and Ankara’s designation of the Gulen Movement as a “terrorist organization”[1] in 2016. These major developments have considerably impacted Turkey’s agenda and priorities vis-à-vis Africa.

Before making an assessment of the fallout of these issues on Turkey-Africa relations, it would be appropriate to begin with brief historical background.