Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu left for South Africa on Sunday as he embarked on a five-nation tour on the continent. Türkiye's top diplomats will visit Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Gabon, Sao Tome and Principe after the opening ceremony of the Turkish Consulate General in Cape Town.
The opening ceremony will be followed by a meeting with Turkish expatriates in South Africa and discussions with South African officials in Pretoria on Monday.
The ministry said that the visit between Jan. 8 and Jan. 14 will see "all aspects of our bilateral relations with those countries elaborated, along with regional developments."
"Türkiye's Africa Partnership Policy will be reviewed during the visit," the ministry also said.
Amid growing ties with African countries, in 2021, Türkiye hosted the third edition of the Türkiye-Africa Partnership Summit in Istanbul – the city where the summit was first launched before a second edition held in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea.
Ankara has frequently reaffirmed that Türkiye’s approach in its ever-growing relations with African countries is based on equal partnership and a win-win principle, emphasizing the strong will to further develop commercial ties.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan emphasizes an approach opposite of the colonialist views of Western countries when it comes to maintaining ties with African countries. He last embarked on a four-day diplomatic tour in 2021 to three African countries, Angola, Nigeria and Togo, as part of the country's African policy to contribute to the economic and social development of the continent with peace and stability, as well as to develop bilateral relations based on equal partnership and mutual benefit.
Türkiye's engagement with the African continent has been gaining pace over the years. Since taking office nearly two decades ago, first serving as prime minister, Erdoğan has been fostering ties with Africa, presenting Türkiye as a fairer player than the continent’s former colonial powers.
Both sides have been vowing to tap into their greater potential when it comes to further expanding and deepening relations. To this effect, the number of Turkish embassies in Africa has increased from just 12 in 2002 to 43 in 2021. Türkiye's trade with Africa totaled $5.4 billion in 2003, which climbed to $25.3 billion by 2020 despite the coronavirus pandemic.
Having adopted a one-dimensional foreign policy shaped by its relations with the West for decades, Türkiye has shifted to a more diversified, multidimensional and independent foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. Türkiye's opening up to Africa, which dates back to the action plan adopted in 1998, took shape in 2005, which Ankara declared the “Year of Africa.”
Türkiye was accorded observer status by the Africa Union the same year. In a reciprocal move, the African Union declared Türkiye its strategic partner in 2008, and relations between Africa and Türkiye gained momentum when the first Türkiye-Africa Cooperation Summit was held in the commercial capital Istanbul with the participation of representatives from 50 African countries that year.
