Sales of weapons to African nations are booming after Turkey signed military cooperation deals with dozens of governments on the continent. Turkey's defence and aerospace exports to the continent grew more than fivefold, to $460.6 million, in 2021 — up from $82.9 million in 2020. Albeit, Turkey's share of Africa's arms market is still tiny at 0.5%. But the rapid growth of defense sales is "striking," according to a 2022 study on Turkey's security diplomacy in Africa
Turkey is stepping up its security footprint in Africa after over a decade of strategically expanding its economic and cultural influence on the continent. Turkey is proving a reliable alternative to traditional arms exporters, such as Russia, China, France and the United States. For Turkey, Africa is potentially huge market for Ankara's emerging defense and aerospace industry, which boasted some 1,500 companies in 2020 compared to just 56 in 2002.
Abel Abate Demissie, an associate fellow at the British think tank Chatham House, explained, Turkish arms are relatively cheap, have shorter delivery times and come free of "bureaucratic hurdles" such as political or human rights conditions
"In Africa, wherever we went, they asked us for unarmed and armed drones," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said after returning from a 2021 trip to the continent. Erdogan, who has visited more African countries than any non-African leader, has even redefined Turkey as an "Afro-Eurasian state," Eguegu pointed out. "By connecting its identity with Africa, it's a way to make itself almost a neutral partner of African countries."
African nations that have already taken delivery of Turkish-manufactured drones include Somalia, Togo, Niger, Nigeria and Ethiopia — although the drone sales to Ethiopia have attracted Western criticism after the government used them to attack civilians in the Tigray conflict.
Turkey has signed military-related pacts with the majority of African countries, mainly in West and East Africa (as shown in the map below). While the deals vary in scope, they can include technical visits to research centers, personnel exchanges between institutions and companies, and training.
In Somalia,Turkey operates its biggest foreign base, Camp TURKSOM where the Turkish government has boasted of training a third of Somalia's 15,000-strong army in the fight against al-Shabab. Turkey has been training Kenyan police officers since 2020. Turkey gave the G5 Sahel Joint Force (made up of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger) a $5 million contribution for the fight against terrorism in 2018. It has since signed military cooperation and defense agreements with Niger, Nigeria, Togo and Senegal.
The 2021 Turkey-Africa summit attracted 16 African heads of state and more than 100 ministers. This shows that the continent is increasingly attaching strategic importance to Turkey, said Senegal-based peace and security analyst Aissatou Kante, a researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, an African think tank.
Turkey deepens its defense diplomacy in Africa – DW – 10/28/2022
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