Turkey’s ‘New’ Engagements in Africa and Asia: Scope, Content and Implications

Year 2011, Volume: 16 Issue: 3, 115 - 137, 01.10.2011

Mehmet Özkan

Abstract

Since the AK Party assumed power in 2002, Turkish foreign policy has gone through a tremendous change both in its content and scope. The most striking and ‘new’ aspect of Turkey’s foreign policy has been toward Africa and Asia. This article examines and offers a holistic view of these developments. African opening represents a perfect convergence of civil society and state cooperation and bear fruit in political, economic and social terms in a very short time. However, the most important implication is that it aims to conceptualize a ‘new’ Africa in Turkey by overcoming the image of two separate Africa: Sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa. Ankara’s Asia policy has been shaped with an intention of placing the existing relations “in a certain systematic” with the Turkic republics in Central Asia; to reach “a policy of normalization” with countries like China and India; and to follow certain political and economic policies to translate relations “from normal to deep cooperation” with countries like South Korea and Japan

Keywords

Turkish foreign policy, Africa, Asia, China, India.

References

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• This part of the article drawns on the following articles: Mehmet Özkan, Turkey Discovers Africa: Implications and Prospects, SETA Policy Brief, No. 22, Ankara, SETA, 2008; Mehmet Özkan, “What Drives Turkey’s involvement in Africa?”, Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 37, No. 126 (2010), pp. 533-540; Mehmet Özkan, “Turkey’s Rising Role in Africa”, Turkish Policy Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 4 (2010/2011), pp. 93-105; Mehmet Özkan and Birol Akgün, “Turkey’s Opening to Africa”, The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 48, No. 4 (November 2010), pp. 525- 546.
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• Özkan, Turkey Discovers Africa: Implications and Prospects. 26 Ibid.
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