Sudan in Turkey’s African Geopolitics: A Sotto Voce Experience in a Coveted Region

Since the launch of the Opening Plan to Africa in 2003, Turkey's African policy has spread to the whole of the African continent, where its involvement is distinguished by its scope and diversity. This note offers a case study of Turkey's strategy in sub-Saharan Africa, through an analysis of bilateral relations between Turkey and Sudan, and Turkey's presence on the ground. Through Sudan, Turkey is seeking to extend its political influence in the Horn of Africa, a pilot area for its African policy where the level of competition between external players, particularly from the Middle East, is particularly high. The fall of the al-Bashir regime in 2019 has opened up a volatile political sequence in Sudan, from which Turkey has pulled out in favor of its Arab rivals, led by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. Its withdrawal from Sudanese political affairs has not, however, weakened its multi-sector activism on the ground, which demonstrates the resilience of its modus operandi to shifting political conjunctures. This content is available in French: Le Soudan dans la géopolitique africaine de la Turquie : une expérience sotto voce dans une région convoitée