Turkey and Africa in the Context of South-South Cooperation

OpenAlex · English

In spite of their historical and cultural ties, Turkey and African countries did not develop close relations during the Cold War. The unstable environment in domestic politics of Turkey and several African countries hindered a proper rapprochement in the 1990s as well. Since the turn of the 21st century, however, they have been engaged in a fast-paced cooperation. Turkey’s growing engagement in Africa has progressed in tandem with that of other Asian powers, namely China, India, South Korea, Malaysia, and Indonesia. When the increasing presence in Africa of Latin American countries, of Brazil in particular, is added into the whole picture, it can be said that the first two decades of the 21st century has seen a boom in South South Cooperation. This paper treats the mentioned cooperation paradigm as a new aspect of Turkish foreign policy. Given the fact that Ankara was ideologically distanced to the Global South during and soon after the Cold War, the fast-paced Turkish-African cooperation over the last two decades denotes a partial revision in Turkish foreign policy orientation. In the context of this revisionist orientation, the main finding of the paper is that Turkey considers SSC as a way of not only reframing its relations with its African nations but also strengthening the cooperation between rising powers, underdeveloped nations and Islamic political-economic institutions.