'Cash box’ crops up in Turkey’s Africa opening
Somalia stands out among the countries where Turkey has sought to employ “soft power” as part of its “active” foreign policy. Public conscience is easy to mobilize for Somalia, a country that has become synonymous with hunger, and that is what Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan took advantage of on Aug. 19, 2011, when he landed in Mogadishu on a humanitarian aid mission as Turks back home resisted their own hunger during the Ramadan fast. The timing was poignant and coupled with intense publicity about Erdogan being the first foreign leader to visit Somalia in a number of years. Turkey’s Red Crescent and the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), backed by a number of civil groups, embarked on such an extensive aid campaign that international actors could not help but wonder, “What are the Turks after?”
More:'Cash box’ crops up in Turkey’s Africa opening - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
