Erdoğan held a joint press conference with President Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo of Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chair of the African Union (AU), and African Union Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat following the 3rd Türkiye-Africa Partnership Summit.

“Today’s summit will elevate Turkey-Africa relations to an upper league”

Drawing attention to the continually rising momentum in the Turkey-Africa relations from 2005 onwards, Erdoğan stressed that embassies, the number of which has been increased mutually, play a major role in the progress made in every area of the relations.

Recalling that 2005 was declared as the Year of Africa in Turkey, Erdoğan said: “The number of our embassies rose from 12 in 2005 to 43 in 2021. We aim to raise it to 49 at the first stage. In the meantime, the number of African embassies in Ankara has increased from 10 to 37. Still in the same period, we have raised the number of commercial counsellor offices, which play an important role in the strengthening of our bilateral trade, from six to 38. Today’s summit will elevate Turkey-Africa relations to an upper league. We have agreed upon a roadmap that will further deepen our relations through the communique and joint action plan we have adopted during today’s summit, held with the theme of Enhanced Partnership for Common Development and Prosperity.

Erdoğan stated that the action plan, covering the 2022-2026 period, would guide the partnership in the continent across a wide spectrum of areas extending from peace, security, and justice to infrastructure investments, trade, and empowerment of women and the education of youth.

“We will continue to incentivize Turkish companies doing business in Africa”

Highlighting that Turkey seeks to win, develop and flourish together with Africa, Erdoğan underlined that Turkish companies will continue to be incentivized by the Turkish government in their localization efforts while doing business in Africa.

Noting that he also had bilateral talks with his African counterparts on the sidelines of the summit, Erdoğan said: “I expressed our support for the enhancement of African countries’ representation at the Security Council in line with our principle that the World is bigger than 5. I hereby would like to underscore our determination to maintain our cooperation with our African friends on many issues including the fight against terror, organized crime and drugs, development and eradication of poverty, education, and pandemics. With the same perspective, I once again drew our African friends’ attention to the fact that persons and organizations that are affiliated with the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), which targets the Turkish democracy, find refuge in some African countries. I thank all our friends who have supported our fight against FETO by forbidding its activities and by closing down or handing over to the Maarif Foundation the education facilities affiliated with FETO. It is our rightful expectation that this attitude is adopted by other countries as well.” (ILKHA)