Zeinoul Abedien Cajee from AwqafSA attended a think tank summit on Turkish-African relations.
The aim of the summit was to strengthen cooperation between African countries and Turkey and more specifically focus in the areas of construction and health.
The two day summit was held in Istanbul durinmg 19/20 December 2015 and Turkey’s Deputy Prime minister Yalçın Akdoğan stressed the links between the Ottoman Empire and African nations. He considered people of Africa as he stated “our brothers and sisters” and he wanted to foster trade relations with the continent in an ethical manner.
“Since 2005, opportunities for creating equal level cooperation between Turkey and African countries have been enabled. The first aim in this direction was to increase the number of Turkish diplomatic missions in Africa. The Republic of Turkey, with the Turkey-Africa Cooperation Summits, the first of which was in August 2008 and the second in November 2014, manifested its desire to increase the level of cooperation with all African countries. In 2010 Ankara accepted its Africa Strategic Document. With this document Ankara put forward its approach of “solidarity for a common future.” It explained what should be done in the near future and read: “The steps that have been taken by Turkey as a state strategy have to expand into the civil level of cooperation for them to become more established and to be carried into the future. In fact, it is more important to prioritize civil cooperation for the future of Turkish-African relations.” (Excerpt from Daily Sabah)
Rationale for the Summit: Click here
Summit Programme: Click here
Post Summit Press Release: Click here
Event photos
