Carney announces trade and defence partnership with Turkey
Prime Minister Mark Carney's political and economic tightrope act began Thursday as he and Turkish President Recep Erdogan announced a strategic partnership aimed at expanding trade and defence co-operation.
PM visits Ankara seeking stronger ties with key NATO ally
Murray Brewster · CBC News
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Prime Minister Mark Carney's political and economic tightrope act began Thursday as he and Turkish President Recep Erdogan announced a strategic partnership aimed at expanding trade and defence co-operation.
It is the latest step in the warming of relations between the two nations and an important moment in the prime minister's plan to co-operate more closely with other middle-power countries.
Carney praised Turkey as an "exceptional" partner.
"No country builds strength alone," he said in a joint statement at the sprawling presidential palace compound.
"The most resilient countries bring together complementary strengths with trusted partners. Our goal isn’t self-sufficiency. It is collective resilience. That’s why Canada is building deeper partnerships with reliable partners that create new opportunities for Canadians."
There are four pillars to the new partnership — trade and investment, defence and security, energy, and people-to-people ties.
Next month, negotiators will sit down in Ankara for the first round of free trade talks. Also, the partnership includes a new agreement on defence industry co-operation that will better connect Canadian and Turkish companies.
Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Tim Hodgson, seen here in Ottawa on July 16, will be joining Carney for talks with Turkish officials. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)
The partnership will also pave the way for investments in the energy and critical minerals sectors. The two countries will also finalize an air transport agreement, increasing passenger flights between the two countries.
The bilateral visit, a first for Canadian prime minister, comes as human rights groups raise the alarm over Turkey's sweeping crackdown last month on dissent and civil society groups, including the dismantling of 2SLGBTQ+ and HIV-advocacy organizations.
"The prime minister has been very clear. We need to engage with the world as it is, not the way we wish it to be," Energy Minister Tim Hodgson said ahead of the trip. He will be joining Carney for talks with Turkish officials.
People run from the police during a march in support of transgender people and their rights during the 2SLGBTQ+ Pride week, in Istanbul, Turkey, on June 21. (Dilara Acikgoz/The Associated Press)
"Where we have differences of opinion, we discuss those in private."
Carney is looking to diversify Canada's trade to make the country less dependent on the United States. Much of the effort has thus far gone into deepening ties with Europe and nations in the Indo-Pacific.
Turkey, a member of NATO with a growing defence industrial sector, is seen as a key ally on the trade and military production fronts, says Thomas Juneau of the University of Ottawa, an expert in the Middle East.
"What the Carney government appears to be making as a choice is not to restrict diversification efforts only to democracies, only to countries that have positive human rights records," said Juneau.
Turkey has become increasingly authoritarian under Erdogan, who has been president since 2014.
"This is morally a difficult dilemma on the Canadian side, but the calculus appears on the part of the government that if Canada were to choose to diversify only with democracies the ceiling for success would be low."
Immediately after landing in Ankara on Thursday, visited Anitkabir, the Mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who was the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey.
The structure and its 750,000 square-metre grounds are beautifully maintained, divided into the Peace Park with tens of thousands of plants and trees including Canadian maples, and the Monument Block. Carney laid a wreath at the monument.
Carney pays his respects after laying a wreath during a ceremony at the Anıtkabir, the Mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, in Ankara. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
Turkey aims to expand its energy capacity significantly in the coming decades, planning to add roughly 20 gigawatts of nuclear power by 2050.
To that end, Ottawa and Ankara are reportedly planning to set up a working group to study the feasibility of a bid by Canada's Candu nuclear team in order to build Turkey's planned second or third nuclear power plant.
Hodgeson declined comment on the possibility.
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Sevag Belian, the executive director of the Armenian National Committee of Canada, says any nuclear deal with Turkey deserves close scrutiny.
He pointed to the previous falling out between the two countries which resulted in Canada imposing a de facto arms embargo, which was mostly lifted in 2024. The lifting of those measures was the price Erdogen demanded of the Trudeau government for getting behind Sweden's membership in NATO.
The fallout started in 2020 when Turkish authorities applied for an exemption related to importation of Wescam target acquisition gear used in Turkey's Bayraktar drones.
"We know from the disclosed documents that they had said that they will be using the few cameras that they got through the exemption for reconnaissance activities related to NATO operations in the north of Syria," said Belian.
"But then we know that those cameras were actually diverted illegally to Azerbaijan and used during the war in Nagorno.
"We have established through parliamentary investigation that the Turkish side clearly lied."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Murray Brewster is the senior defence writer for CBC News, based in Ottawa. He has covered the Canadian military and foreign policy from Parliament Hill for over a decade. Among other assignments, he spent a total of 15 months on the ground covering the Afghan war for The Canadian Press. Prior to that, he covered defence issues and politics for CP in Nova Scotia for 11 years and was bureau chief for Standard Broadcast News in Ottawa.
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