How Turkey Became Africa’s Mediator

After successfully brokering a deal between Ethiopia and Somalia, Ankara is trying to end Sudan’s civil war.

Turkey has turned its mediation efforts to Sudan’s civil war after settling a diplomatic dispute between Ethiopia and Somalia. Sudan has been locked in a power struggle between two rival generals for nearly two years. More than 11 million people have fled their homes, and tens of thousands are dead.

In early January, Sudan’s military leader, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, welcomed Turkey’s offer to mediate between Sudan and the United Arab Emirates. Burhan’s generals have repeatedly accused the UAE of supporting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan “Hemeti” Dagalo. A United Nations report and several media investigations have found that Abu Dhabi is funding and arming the RSF. Washington last Tuesday issued sanctions targeting Hemeti and seven Emirati companies. Turkey’s reported proposal would persuade Abu Dhabi to cease RSF support in exchange for Sudan withdrawing its complaints against the UAE at the U.N. Security Council.

Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Burhanettin Duran visited Port Sudan on Jan. 4 with an ambitious set of plans to open a bank and an aid agency there. Three ships carrying 8,000 metric tons of humanitarian aid were reportedly en route to Sudan, according to Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Yousif.

“Sudan needs brothers and friends like Turkey,” Yousif said. “This initiative can lead to real efforts to achieve peace in Sudan.”

Turkey has been looking to fill the void left by the United States across the Horn of Africa and into the Sahel. It has sold drones to Chad, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. The relationship gives potential access to Niger’s abundant uranium deposits, which Ankara needs to power its first nuclear power station, scheduled to open late this year.

Africa Brief first wrote about Ankara’s bid for influence in Africa three years ago. Since then, Turkey has signed military agreements with Nigeria, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and most recently Somalia. Last October, it launched oil and gas exploration off the coast of Somalia.

After Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to power 22 years ago, Turkey’s trade with Africa rose—reaching $35 billion in 2023, from just $5.4 billion in 2003. Its investments on the continent include a mosque in Mali, a hospital in Niger, and an army base in Somalia training 10,000 local troops.

“Those numbers tell us something about Turkey’s increasing presence in the continent because until the last few years, we were not talking that much about Turkey’s involvement in the Sahel, much less Africa,” said Elem Eyrice Tepeciklioglu, an associate professor at the Social Sciences University of Ankara who has written a book on Turkey’s expanding influence across Africa.

African nations “do not see Turkey as a country following hard power-based policies because, yes, security cooperation is also there, but Turkey’s Africa policy initially relied on the use of different soft power tools and strategies,” she added.

Turkey hosted its third ministerial review conference jointly with the African Union in Djibouti last year and provided a platform to tout defense and energy cooperation. Ankara, like many emerging middle powers in Africa, has closely watched China—seeking to replicate its strategy on soft power and infrastructure development. Turkish Airlines flies to some 60 African destinations. Like Chinese leaders, Turkish officials regularly remind their African counterparts that the country does not share the West’s colonial baggage in the region and therefore is a better, more neutral partner.

In 2020, French President Emmanuel Macron said Turkey was turning African public opinion against Paris by playing on “post-colonial resentment.”

“Turkey has never been in a colonial position or relationship with the Continent. On the contrary, African nations looked for help from Ottomans in their struggle against colonial oppressors,” then-Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu wrote in 2014.

However, some of this is revisionist history, which Turkish state media have helped spread. Turkey was a colonial ruler in Sudan and heavily involved in the enslavement of Africans from the Great Lakes and Central Africa during the Ottoman Empire, leading to an invisible community of Afro-Turks today.

Volkan Ipek, a professor of political science and international relations at Yeditepe University in Istanbul, said Turkey was looking to replicate a “neo-Ottomanist and humanitarian foreign policy” in Sudan.

“Turkey would like to get rid of what is going on now in Sudan, which naturally and negatively affects Turkish investments” and Ankara’s prewar development efforts there, Ipek added.

Thanks to the near-total absence of the AU in mediation efforts for various disputes across Africa, Turkey’s influence has grown stronger in Somalia, Ethiopia, and Sudan.

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