TURKEY’S EMERGING ECONOMIC TIES IN THE HORN OF AFRICA: THE RISE OF VIRTUAL STATE

Horn of Africa is becoming home for Turkish institutional level relation, by serving as get-way for Turkish access to AU, ADB and IGAD. The total trade transaction between Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and Turkey reached more than 500 million USD than less than 100 million it has been in 2004. FDI only in Ethiopia accounted 3.2 billion USD, which is by far the largest in Africa. The first overseas public bank that Turkey has opened is in the horn of Africa. TIKA and Anadolu News Agency has well establishment in the region already. In this paper, Turkey’s emerging economic interest in the horn of Africa is discussed based on the Richards Rosecrans’s (1996) conceptual framework of virtual state, and Robert Putnam’s (1988) second track diplomacy.