Browsing: West Africa Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Turkish engagement in Africa is expanding rapidly, extending beyond economic outreach to encompass business, aid, diplomacy, culture and military support.

The rapid growing Turkish presence on the continent has been primary conceived by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, who has sought to remodel Turkey as an “Afro-Eurasian state”; a model for the Islamic world and an alternative to the West, which, in his mind, has surrendered its moral authority.

What began with economic outreach, experts say, has progressed into a complex Africa policy encompassing business, aid, diplomacy, culture and military support.

Today, Turkish fingerprints are all over Africa, from the Kigali Arena in Rwanda, East Africa’s biggest stadium, built by a Turkish construction firm, to an Olympic swimming pool in Coastal Senegal, a colossal mosque in Djibouti, Turkish military hardware on Libya’s battlefields, A military base in Somalia. And in arid Niger, a gateway to the Sahara desert, and a …