Carney to visit Turkey this month for first dedicated bilateral trip by Canadian leader Prime Minister Mark Carney plans to visit Turkey this month to meet President Tayyip Erdogan, the first dedicated bilateral visit by a Canadian leader, with trade, energy and defense cooperation on the agenda. Prime Minister Mark Carney plans to visit Turkey this month to meet President Tayyip Erdogan, four sources with knowledge of the visit said. It would be the first dedicated bilateral visit to the country by a Canadian leader. One source said Carney and Erdogan could discuss the free-trade talks they launched on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Ankara in July. They could also discuss potential energy and defense cooperation. Canadian and Turkish trade ministers agreed this week to accelerate the talks ahead of the leaders' meeting, two sources said. The sources did not share the dates or agenda of the visit planned later this month.Carney Diversifies Away From the United StatesThe visit would mark Carney's latest break with Canadian diplomatic convention as he seeks to reduce reliance on the United States. That is by far Canada's biggest trading partner, after a collapse in trade talks in August. Carney has vowed to double Canada's non-U.S. trade over the next decade. He has rushed to establish ties with a host of countries, including China and India, with which it had past strains.He has focused less on human rights than his predecessors to forge ahead. Polls show strong support among Canadians for his efforts to reinforce the economy in the face of U.S. tariffs. Erdogan, Turkey's leader of 23 years, seeks new markets and collaboration for the regional military power's burgeoning defense industry. Rights groups have criticized him for a crackdown on the political opposition since 2024.Erdogan says an independent judiciary is probing the opposition and rejects claims it is politically motivated. Turkey, an emerging market economy whose biggest trading partner is the European Union, also seeks partnerships and investment in energy, infrastructure and mining. Carney's office and Erdogan's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Western powers have grown relatively silent on Turkey's rights record as it has become a leading defense-industrial power and a bulwark against Russian aggression.Turkey Visit and Bilateral RelationsSince last month, a wave of arrests and restrictions has targeted Turkey's LGBTQ+ community. The government says the probe aims to protect children and family values, but it has drawn sharp criticism from rights groups and some European officials. No Canadian prime minister is known to have made a standalone bilateral visit to Turkey in recent decades. They have met Erdogan and other Turkish leaders on the sidelines of multilateral gatherings, including NATO and G20 summits hosted by Turkey.At the NATO leaders' summit in July, Carney and Erdogan formally launched negotiations for a free-trade agreement. That month, Turkey agreed to join Canada's Defense Security and Resilience Bank as one of 10 founding member nations of Carney's multilateral middle powers bank. The two countries' trade ministers met in June and planned to expand cooperation on renewable and nuclear energy, a Canadian government statement said. It listed aerospace, defense and security as areas of potential new partnerships.Turkey has held talks with Canadian engineering firm AtkinsRealis as well as South Korea's Korea Electric Power Corporation and China's State Power Investment Corporation. The discussions concern potentially building its second and third nuclear power plants, while Russia's Rosatom is building its first. An executive at AtkinsRealis, which holds the exclusive licence for Canadian-designed CANDU reactors, told Reuters this year that it anticipates Turkey will complete an early review of its CANDU reactors.Nuclear Cooperation and Small Bilateral TradeThat follows an information exchange and may lead to concrete talks for a plant bid. In a step that helped thaw bilateral ties in 2024, Canada removed weapons-export controls on Turkey. That included optical technology used in drones that Turkey exports to dozens of nations. Yet bilateral trade is small.Turkey accounted for less than 0.3 per cent of Canada's total merchandise trade in 2025, or C$4.34 billion, compared with C$1 trillion with the U.S., Statistics Canada data shows. Canada mainly exports lentils, aircraft and electronics to Turkey. It imports medical devices, fishing vessels, aircraft engines and jewelry. One Canadian dollar was worth about 1.4227 Canadian dollars in the conversion used by Reuters.