Carney lands in Turkey for meetings with Erdogan, business leaders – National

Prime Minister Mark Carney arrived in Turkey on Thursday to kick off a three-day trip aimed at deepening political and economic ties with the NATO ally.

Carney is set to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, in what the Prime Minister’s Office says will be the first bilateral visit by a Canadian prime minister to Turkey.

Shortly after landing on Thursday, Carney laid a wreath at the mausoleum of Turkish founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Joining Carney on the trip are Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson.

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Senior government officials told reporters ahead of the trip that Hodgson’s presence on the trip speaks to the importance of energy projects in talks between the nations.

Canada and Turkey do about $4 billion in trade annually and formally launched talks to pursue a free-trade pact on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara earlier this year.

Carney is in Turkey for a three-day trip that experts say should show how his approach to international diplomacy differs from that of the previous Liberal government. Carney’s office says this is the first official bilateral visit by a Canadian prime minister to Turkey.

Carney’s bid to diversify trade beyond the United States and find new global investors for Canadian infrastructure projects is well-suited to deeper ties with Turkey, said Kerim Uras, the former Turkish ambassador to Canada.

Both the Canadian and Turkish economies need alternatives to the increasingly protectionist U.S. market, Uras said.

While neither country can replace the United States with any one partner, forging connections between middle powers should be part of the path forward, he said.

“One can summarize it like the Carney doctrine meets Turkish pragmatism,” said Uras, now a senior fellow at Carleton University’s Centre in Modern Turkish Studies.

After meeting Erdogan in Ankara, Carney will head to Istanbul for meetings with Turkish business leaders on Friday before heading back to Canada on Saturday.

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