{"id":14136,"date":"2024-02-12T19:38:07","date_gmt":"2024-02-12T19:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/?p=14136"},"modified":"2024-02-12T19:38:07","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T19:38:07","slug":"turkeys-approach-to-africa-lessons-for-nato-2-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/12\/turkeys-approach-to-africa-lessons-for-nato-2-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey\u2019s Approach to Africa, Lessons for NATO (2-2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Agencies – Sudan Events<\/strong><\/p>\n

As Turkey struggles with its own decades-long terrorism problem with the Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party\u2014a Kurdish militant group which Turkey, the United States, and the European Union recognize as a terrorist organization\u2014Ankara can empathize with its African partners who are facing their own challenges from terrorist groups. As these countries look to combat terrorism, Turkey exports lessons learned from its counterterrorism operations to its African partners.
\nTurkish companies have sold armored vehicles to African countries; the Turkish government has donated such vehicles to some countries as well. Troops in Kenya, Chad, and Somalia are pursuing terrorist groups with the help of these Turkish armored vehicles.
\nAdditionally, Turkish drones hover over the African continent. An increasing number of African nations\u2014including Niger and Ethiopia\u2014are deploying Turkish unmanned aerial systems to conduct pinpoint strikes and collect intelligence on terrorist targets.
\nSeveral announcements from Turkish officials and improving Turkey-Africa relations suggest that the Turkish defence industry\u2019s footprint in the continent might deepen in the future. Importantly, in contrast with some other countries arming African nations, Turkey\u2019s military policy involves a high degree of cooperation, after-sale support, and other forms of assistance.
\nIn addition to equipping the Somali Armed Forces with high-end Turkish weapons systems, Turkey also established a defense university, Camp TURKSOM, in Mogadishu in 2017 to train Somalia\u2019s military. Such a university demonstrates that for Turkey and Somalia, their military relations rest on bolstering their joint capabilities (rather than simply a set of transactions), strengthening Somalia\u2019s security, and fostering a common identity for the two nations\u2019 armed forces. Additionally, Turkish military policy in Africa has remained mostly unchanged despite recent security challenges in the region and the open threats Ankara has received from terrorist organizations such as al-Shabaab.
\nBeyond its involvement in counterterrorism and capacity-building efforts in Africa, Ankara\u2019s positioning in recent affairs in the region also differs from the positions taken by many other NATO countries. During the recent political turmoil in Niger, while some countries cut off or threatened to halt humanitarian aid, Turkey refrained from making bold claims on the matter. Later, Erdo\u011fan opposed proposals for a military intervention in Niger and expressed hopes that the country could reach constitutional order and democratic governance soon. This noninterventionist stance seems closely tied to Ankara\u2019s strategic objective to establish a long-lasting relationship with Niger\u2014and to possibly secure the continuation of military-security cooperation deals signed between Ankara and Niamey (which involve the prospect of opening a military base in Niger) and protect Ankara\u2019s investments in the country, which depend on Niger\u2019s stability.
\nMoving forward, the steps NATO allies take in Africa will greatly shape the continent\u2019s geopolitical orientation. As Western capitals are increasingly pushed to recalibrate their Africa strategies, Ankara\u2019s approach\u2014one that rests on the pillars of a careful mix of hard and soft power, capacity building, noninterventionism, and mutual cooperation\u2014can provide lessons.
\nAnd while that process is underway, Turkey\u2014whose political-military ties to the continent sit on strong foundations\u2014can help counterbalance the growing footprint of NATO\u2019s strategic rivals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Agencies – Sudan Events As Turkey struggles with its own decades-long terrorism problem with the Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party\u2014a Kurdish militant group which Turkey, the United States, and the European Union recognize as a terrorist organization\u2014Ankara can empathize with its African partners who are facing their own challenges from terrorist groups. As these countries look to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14137,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14136\/revisions\/14137"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}