Despite the prolonged European economic crisis, Turkey is comparatively doing well and free from any significant monetary turmoil. The Turkish International Development and Cooperation Agency (TIKA) continue to break its own records, conducting activities in 100 countries, where the total of its assistance has reached 1.5 billion US dollars in 2012. But the bulk of TIKA’s projects are not in the Middle East, where Turkey’s new foreign policy is receiving the most attention to mixed reactions.
TIKA was founded in 1992 to help push forward the Turkish foreign policy’s priorities mainly by assisting the development of newly independent states from the Soviet Union by offering cooperation in economic and infra-structure assistance as well as commercial, cultural, social and educational exchanges. With the 21st century Turkey, although Ankara’s foreign policy has gone through some significant changes, TIKA quickly adopted to the new terrain by increasing the number of its 12 offices in 2002 to 25 in 2011 and to 33 in 2012. It’s conducting activities “in 100 countries from the Pacific to Central Asia, from the Middle East to Africa, from the Balkans to Caucasia and to Latin America.”
