Carney and Erdoğan launch "strategic partnership" in Ankara — free-trade talks start next month

What's in the partnership

Canada and Türkiye launched a Strategic Partnership on Thursday, Oct. 22, during the first bilateral visit to Türkiye by a sitting Canadian prime minister, according to the Prime Minister's Office readout. The leaders agreed to deepen cooperation across trade and investment, energy, defence and security, and people-to-people ties — and Prime Minister Mark Carney confirmed that the first round of free-trade negotiations will begin in Ankara next month, Global News reported.

Three agreements signed

Carney and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan watched the signing of three agreements after their talks at the Presidential Complex: a defence-sector partnerships memorandum of understanding, an air transport agreement, and a joint declaration on energy cooperation. Foreign Minister Anita Anand signed the defence and air transport deals with her Turkish counterparts; Energy Minister Tim Hodgson signed the energy declaration with Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar.

The money targets

Erdoğan said the two sides would target raising annual bilateral trade from roughly $3 billion to $5 billion at first and eventually to $10 billion. Carney also announced a Canadian trade mission to Türkiye in 2027 and welcomed closer cooperation between Export Development Canada and Türk Eximbank to back commercial opportunities in third-country markets. "Our goal is not self-sufficiency; it is collective resilience. And that's why Canada is building deeper partnerships with reliable partners," Carney said at the joint press conference, according to Global News.

The Canadian angle

Türkiye buys little from Canada today — less than 0.3 per cent of Canada's merchandise trade, about C$4.34 billion — though that trade has grown nearly 50 per cent in five years, according to Reuters. The visit is another brick in Carney's strategy to double non-U.S. exports over the next decade, alongside his January trip to Beijing. Carney travels to Istanbul on Friday to meet Turkish business leaders, and the nuclear file — a possible CANDU bid for a planned plant on Türkiye's Black Sea coast — remains the longest-running item on the agenda.