Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived at Islamabad, Pakistan yesterday on his 2 days official visit.
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| Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan (on left) and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan(on right) [DAWN] |
Erdogan's first visit to Pakistan as the president of Turkey will have a tremendous effect on South Asian diplomacy.
With Erdogan's visit, Imran Khan will try to involve Turkey to CPEC indirectly and attracting Turkish defense investors to invest in Pakistani defense industry. But Turkey's ambition is higher than just Pakistan.
There's no doubt that developing Turkey-China's diplomatic relations which are under crisis because of the Uyghur issue can be the prime motive of this Erdogan's visit in Pakistan. Just like Russia can't show warm relations with Israel for diplomatic and moral issues, Turkey can't just maintain good relations with China leaving the Uyghur issue behind. But Turkey can easily do this with the help of Pakistan by making Pakistan a better medium between them and China. The under-construction Turkish consulate in Karachi, Pakistan surely will strengthen the Pak-Turk relation which consulate is going to be the largest Turkish consulate in the world. And Turkey claims that they help Pakistan to operate US-made F-16 jet fighters which include overhauling.
Now let's shed some light on Turkey's economic operation in Africa.
Turkey entered into Africa in 1998, four years after the AK party's coming to power.
After forming the government the AK party (Justice & Development Party) has formed Turkey's Africa model in an extended form. In the first wave it was free trade, investment and humanitarian help. Then in the second wave the military dimension has been added. In this continuation Turkey established a military base in Somalia for the purpose of training the local Somalian army. According to some secret sources, in that base Turkey has deployed a good number of SAT commandos. In the meantime, Turkey has enhanced embassy numbers in Africa from 12 to 42. In Turkey, African countries also have increased their embassies from 10 to 36 in the last 10 years. In the last 17 years Turkish trade in Africa become $26bn including $16 bn Turkish export to Africa by growing at the speed of 381 percent. Erdogan hopes that he'll take this trade at $50 bn.
Currently Turkey is holding a $2 bn investment in Africa with a market value of $6 bn. But this investment is so childish to China, France, the USA and even to the UAE.
Fehim Testekim, a Turkish journalist thinks that France is in the fear of losing Africa to Turkey but the actual fact is totally different. The real player is China there. China has followed that economic model about what I've discussed in my previous article.
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Actually China has introduced an updated version of that model which often called the debt trap. Whatever Turkey turned up military approaches when they realized that they are losing to China in that region.
Before going down Sudan's Omar Al Bashir was agreed to give the Suakin Island to Turkey where Turkey would establish a military base. It should be noted that this island was once used to be one of the most powerful naval bases of the Ottoman Empire. But this island trade is now hanging because Bashir is no longer in the power of Sudan. Now it seems like that Turkey's military pacing in Africa is a bid fair as France is gradually musted to retract them from Africa. If France keeps operating the CFA Frame System which they use to operate in their ex-colonies, half of their cash reserve will just have vanished in the next 5 years. Again, where France's exports in Africa were 11 percent of their whole export in 2000, it came down to 5.5 percent in 2017. So it's clear that China and Turkey are going to be the real player in Africa in the near future.
Multidimensional Turkey's quest for being the owner of nuclear warheads was expressed by Erdogan last year. So it can't be stated clearly about Turkey that despite having that much technological, economical and diplomatic ability they'll be just sitting ducks. For TOT(Transfer Of Technology) they have got Pakistan which is under economic chaos. What else do they need?
But the major question is will Turkey be able to survive if the USA imposes economic sanctions against Turkey?
The author is a student at Department of Criminology, University Of Dhaka.
