Turkiye
On June 3 the Turkish Foreign Minister, Hakan Fidan, traveled to China for a three-day visit. The most significant meeting was with the Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi: the focus of the talks was Ankara’s intention to join the BRICS. Fidan also met several prominent members of the Turkish business community in China; after the meeting, the minister noted that Beijing is Ankara’s top trading partner in Asia and the third in the world, with a trade exchange of over $47 billion in 2023. Finally, the Turkish minister visited Xinjiang, an autonomous region in northern China where the Uyghur minority (a Muslim, Turkic-speaking population subject to a strong Chinese assimilation campaign) resides. Türkiye is known to host a considerable number of Uyghur dissidents. On the sidelines of the visit, Fidan declared that Türkiye supports China’s territorial integrity – a way to reassure Beijing that the Uyghur issue will not hinder relations between the two countries. Fidan’s trip to China marked the first visit by a senior Turkish official since 2012, when Erdoğan went to the country.
On June 17, Fidan also met in Ankara the Somali President, Hassan Sheikh. Although details on the visit were not disclosed, the presence of the Somali Defense Minister, Abdulkadir Mohamed Nur, suggests that the focus of the talks was on security issues, such as Ethiopian pressures for access to the Red Sea and the fight against Al-Shabaab. This was the fourth high-level meeting between representatives of the two countries in 2024; particularly noteworthy is the February meeting, when an agreement on maritime security was signed, establishing that Türkiye will rebuild and equip the Somali navy, receiving in return 30% of the profits from the exploitation of Mogadishu’s exclusive economic zone. Shortly after the conclusion of the agreement, the two countries signed another deal in the energy sector, identifying Ankara as a partner for the exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons off the Somali coast. It is worth noting that Erdoğan supported Somalia during one of the most challenging periods in its recent history, during the famine of 2011-2012, when the African country felt largely abandoned by the international community.
Download the June 2024 report
On Wednesday, July 20, a Memorandum of Cooperation between Med-Or Foundation and the Center for Strategic Research of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey was signed.
A brief history of the Khazar Khaganate by Alessandro Giuli
Turkey’s economic and energy policies are linked to the country’s geopolitical ambitions in the Broader Mediterranean. A look at Ankara’s role in the region’s balance.
| Head of state | Recep Tayyip Erdoğan |
| Head of Government | Cevdet Yılmaz (Vice president) |
| Institutional Form | Unitary presidential constitutional republic |
| Capital | Ankara |
| Legislative Power | Unicameral National Assembly of Türkiye (Türkiye Buyuk Millet Meclisi, 600 members) |
| Judicial Power | Constitutional Court, Court of Cassation, Council of State and the Court of Jurisdictional Disputes. The Constitutional Court judges are appointed by the President and the Parliament |
| Ambassador to Italy | Ömer Gücük |
| Total Area kmq | 783,562 km2 |
| Land | 769,632 km2 |
| Weather | Temperate; hot, dry summers with mild temperatures; wet winters; harsher climate in the inland |
| Natural resources | Coal, iron ore, copper, chromium, antimony, mercury, gold, barite, borate, celestite, limestone, magnesite, marble, perlite, pumice, pyrite (sulphur), clay, arable land, hydropower |
| Economic summary | A free market economy based on industry and the service sectors; the agricultural field still accounts around 25% of employment; heavily dependent on oil and gas imports, has adopt measures to increase the use of domestic energy sources. The economic crisis and the 80% inflation led Türkiye to obtain numerous foreign investments. |
| GDP | $815 billion (Dec. 2021) |
| Pro-capite GDP (Purchasing power parity) | $13251 (Dec. 2021) |
| Exports | $177 billion (2020) |
| Export partner | Germany 9.25, UK 7.2%, United States 5.81%, Iraq 5.18%, Italy 4.66%, France 4.16% (2020) |
| Imports | $207 billion (2020) |
| Import partner | Germany 11.5%, China 10.74%, Russia 6.29%, United States 5.15%, Italy 4.31% (2020) |
| Trade With Italy | $ 22,68 billion (2021) |
| Population | 83.047.706 (2022) |
| Population Growth | +0,67% (2022) |
| Ethnicities | Turks 70-75%, Kurds 18%, other minorities 17% |
| Languages | Turkish (official language), Kurdish, minority languages |
| Religions | Muslims 99.8% (mainly Sunnis), 0.2% mainly Christians and Jews |
| Urbanization | 77% (2022) |
| Literacy | 96,7% |
Born in 1922, after the overthrow of Sultan Mehmet VI, the Republic of Turkey inherited the core part of the Ottoman Empire, which had been greatly reduced after the First World War. Like the old Ottoman Empire, the modern Republic of Turkey stretches over two continents, with the westernmost part of the country, Thrace, in Europe, and the rest of the country occupying the Anatolian Peninsula in Asia. Thrace and Anatolia are separated by the Bosphorus Strait, which links the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara and, by extension, to the Aegean Sea, through the Dardanelles Strait. Turkey is bordered by four seas: the Levant (Mediterranean) Sea to the South, the Marmara and the Aegean seas to the west/south-west and the Black Sea to the north. The country shares its land borders with Greece to the west, Bulgaria to the north-west, Georgia to the north-east, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran to the east, Iraq and Syria to the south-east. The population is about 83 million, 99 percent of whom are Sunnis. About 18 percent of the population has Kurdish origins and lives in the eastern part of the country. There are also small Christian and Jewish minorities. The official language is Turkish.
Thanks to its geographic position, Turkey is one of the gateways to the Mediterranean and the Near East, and has been for centuries a hub for trade and cultural exchanges. For all these reasons, Turkey plays a central role in the broader Mediterranean and it is the only country in the Near East to be a member of NATO, since 1952.
Over the last few decades, Turkey has experienced significant economic growth in a wide range of industrial sectors, ranging from high-tech to manufacturing and agribusiness. With the recent discovery of large off-shore energy fields, Turkey has strongly promoted its national energy industry, with the aim to meet domestic demand and become a key exporter, especially in the gas sector. Italy is Turkey's second largest European trading partner, with an estimated total trade of $ 22,61 billion in 2021. In addition to trade and investment in the agri-food sector, the two countries also cooperate in the energy supply sector, through the construction of several pipelines. Thanks to its important relations with Turkey, Italy plays a prominent role mediating between Ankara and the European Union.
