Tripoli hopes December summit will restore its diplomatic standing

For the officials and residents of Tripoli, this December will bring something the city has not hosted in years: leaders from across Africa and Türkiye gathering on Libyan soil for a summit that the government hopes will signal the country’s return to the centre of continental diplomacy.

Libyan acting Foreign Minister El-Taher El-Baour sat down this week with Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, chairperson of the African Union Commission, to work through preparations for the fourth Africa-Türkiye summit, a two-day meeting scheduled to begin in Tripoli on December 8. The Libyan foreign ministry said the two men discussed how to strengthen coordination with the AU Commission so that the event succeeds, alongside Libya’s relations with the African Union, developments across the continent and cooperation in regional and international forums.

The visit carried practical weight for Libyans who work with the continental body. Youssouf formally reopened the AU’s liaison office in Tripoli during his trip, and he also toured premises allocated for a national office of the AU development agency, known as Nepad. The AU said the liaison office would support closer cooperation with Libya in areas that touch daily life, including peace and security, governance, youth and women’s empowerment, counterterrorism and efforts against transnational organised crime.

The Libyan government has presented the renewed AU presence as part of a broader effort to deepen the country’s engagement in African affairs and build direct coordination with continental institutions. For El-Baour and Youssouf, the December summit was not the only item on the agenda. They also discussed preparations for Libya to host a meeting of the African Union’s Committee of Ten, known as the C10, on reform of the United Nations Security Council, to be held in Tripoli on October 10 and 11.

The summit itself will bring together African leaders and Turkish officials as the two sides seek to deepen cooperation across trade, investment, security, infrastructure and diplomacy. Three editions have been held so far. Türkiye hosted the inaugural summit in Istanbul in 2008 and the third in 2021, while the second took place in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, in 2014. Three ministerial conferences have also been convened, with Istanbul hosting the first two in 2011 and 2018, followed by Djibouti in 2024. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said earlier this year that the Tripoli summit would represent the next major milestone in Türkiye’s partnership with Africa, and the gathering is widely seen as an important stage in the institutional development of Türkiye-Africa relations.

Meanwhile, the meeting comes after more than two decades of rapid growth in Türkiye’s political and economic engagement with the continent. Ankara’s presence accelerated after Türkiye adopted its Africa Action Plan in the late 1990s and deepened further after the African Union recognised Türkiye as a strategic partner in 2008, the same year the first summit was held. Türkiye now operates 44 embassies across Africa, compared with 12 in 2002, while 38 African countries maintain embassies in Ankara, according to the Turkish foreign ministry.

The relationship extends well beyond diplomacy. Fidan said in April that bilateral trade with Africa had grown to $36.6 billion and that Turkish Airlines served 64 destinations across the continent. Türkiye’s Cooperation and Coordination Agency, TİKA, operates 22 offices in Africa, and other institutions, including the Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, the Turkish Red Crescent and the Maarif Foundation, have expanded activities in humanitarian aid, development and education. Economic ties were reinforced through the fifth Türkiye-Africa Business and Economic Forum, held in Istanbul in October 2025, which brought together government and business representatives from Türkiye and African countries.

Security and diplomatic cooperation have grown alongside trade. Ankara has expanded defence cooperation with several African states through training, capacity building and defence-sector partnerships, while positioning itself as a diplomatic facilitator in regional disputes. The most prominent example has been Türkiye’s mediation between Somalia and Ethiopia, which culminated in the Ankara Declaration of December 2024, when Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed agreed, with Turkish facilitation, to reaffirm respect for each other’s sovereignty and pursue negotiations over Ethiopia’s access to the sea under Somali sovereign authority. Technical talks continued under Turkish facilitation in 2025.

For Libya, hosting the December summit offers a chance to reinforce its ties with the African Union and reassert its place in continental diplomacy. The reopening of the AU Liaison Office, the preparations for the C10 meeting and the forthcoming summit all point in the same direction: a renewed Libyan push to position itself more actively within Africa’s diplomatic architecture. Whether Tripoli can turn this diplomatic momentum into a lasting role on the continent will become clearer once the leaders arrive in December.