Zambia’s honorary consul in Istanbul on Sunday said that Zambia and Turkey have established mutually beneficial relations that have continued to grow in recent years.
Bülent Göktuna said that Turkey considers Zambia as a strategic partner both in the region of southern Africa and the continent as a whole, according to a statement from the Zambian embassy in Ankara.
He spoke at the Zambian Chancery in the Turkish capital before handing over a shipment of 12 computers and a laptop worth 166,000 TL ($ 23,000) to Zambia’s Ambassador to Turkey Joseph Chilengi.
Göktuna said that high-level reciprocal visits in July 2018 by Zambian President Edgar Chagwa Lungu and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan were signs of the growing bilateral relations.
He expressed his happiness that the reciprocal visits culminated in the signing of 12 bilateral cooperation agreements in various fields.
Erdoğan met Lungu already in 2018 in the Zambian capital Lusaka. During the first official visit of a Turkish President to the East African country, Turkey and Zambia signed twelve agreements covering agriculture, breeding, fishing, tourism, as well as investment, sports and diplomacy.
“I am convinced that we will strengthen the relationship further … many good things remain,” said Göktuna.
He promised to work on Zambia’s diplomatic mission to improve relations with regional countries such as Azerbaijan.
The Zambian diplomatic mission in Turkey covers Azerbaijan, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Georgia and northern Macedonia as countries with additional foreign accreditation.
Göktuna promised to continue to support the mission in its attempt to realize Zambia’s foreign policy rooted in economic diplomacy.
Chilengi thanked Göktuna for the donation and assured that the computers would be used. “I must admit that this is modern equipment, state of the art, and it will go a long way to support the work of the embassy and the government.”
He praised Göktuna for his long service in Zambia and presented a photo wall display of presidential portraits of the six heads of state who have ruled Zambia since its independence in 1964.
For decades, Turkey had a one-dimensional foreign policy shaped by its relations with the West, but now the country has changed course and adopted its most versatile, multidimensional and independent foreign policy since the end of the Cold War.
Turkey’s engagement with Africa dates back to the adoption of an action plan in 1998, but relations really took shape in 2005, which Ankara declared the “Year of Africa”. Turkey was granted observer status by the African Union (AU) the same year. In a reciprocal move, the AU declared Turkey its strategic partner in 2008, with relations between the continent and Turkey gaining momentum when the first Turkey-Africa summit was held in the commercial capital Istanbul with the participation of representatives from 50 African countries that year. .
In 2009, there were only 12 Turkish embassies in Africa, of which five in North Africa. There are now 42. Turkish Airlines flies to 60 different destinations in 39 countries on the continent. The Turkish International Co-operation and Development Agency (TIKA) has almost 30 coordination centers, and the Board of Foreign Economic Relations (DEIK) has joint business councils with more than half of the African countries.
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