Carney in Turkey to strengthen economic, political ties with NATO ally

We lead off with Prime Minister Mark Carney's latest overseas trip. He's now in Turkey for a three-day visit. It's aimed at strengthening political and economic ties with the NATO ally. Carney is the first Canadian Prime Minister to make a bilateral visit to Turkey, and it's part of his strategy to reduce trade reliance on the United States. And just a short time ago, the two leaders met and delivered remarks. The CBC's Rafi Boudjikanian is among the journalists travelling with the Prime Minister, and he brings us the latest now from Ankara. After a lavish welcoming ceremony at the presidential palace, Prime Minister Mark Carney stood next to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and declared a bold new era in Turkish-Canadian relationships. The most resilient countries bring together complementary strengths with trusted partners. Our goal is not self-sufficiency, it is collective resilience. And that's why Canada is building deeper partnerships with reliable partners that create new opportunities for us both and in Turkey we have an exceptional partner evidently there is still some more work to do on cementing that partnership Thursday's announcement really more of a blueprint than anything else a commitment to keep working on that free trade agreement negotiators set to start talking about that next month also a commitment to strengthen defense ties energy ties including clean energy nuclear energy as well as liquefied natural gas and strengthening people to people ties increasing direct flights between Canada and Turkey to 21 a week all of this a far cry from where the Canada Turkey relationship was just a few years ago when Canada temporarily halted military exports to Turkey after an investigation into allegations that Turkey was providing Canadian-made drone tech parts to its military ally Azerbaijan in its war with Armenia over the then disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Human rights groups have also been critical of Turkey. Authorities here just last month cracked down on LGBTQ groups arresting more than 160 people and just last week Turkish authorities took over an opposition aligned TV station accusing its chair of bribery. Canada has said it needs to engage with the world as it is, not as it wishes the world to be, as Mark Carney seeks to expand the $4.3 billion in annual trade between Canada and Turkey. Rafi Boudjikanian, CBC News, Ankara, Turkey. Now, this trip is also, as we heard there, a diplomatic dance for the Canadian prime minister. We heard the Erdogan government is under heavy scrutiny internationally right now over reports of human rights violations. So, what does a closer relationship with Turkey look like? And how does Canada navigate expanding its relationship with a country that human rights groups are sounding the alarm over? For more on all of this, we've reached former foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Roland Paris, who's in Cappadocia, Turkey. He's also a professor of international affairs at the University of Ottawa. Thank you for making time for us today. My pleasure. OK, so let's start with the significance of this bilateral relationship and visit specifically by a Canadian prime minister, the first of its kind. What does it say about where Canada is going for its relationships now? Well, it shows that Mark Carney is quite serious about expanding Canada's trade relationships beyond the United States and reducing Canada's reliance on the United States. He said that it was necessary to cooperate with countries that we didn't necessarily share values with. And I think that this is one of those countries, because as your reporter mentioned, there are many questions that have been raised about Turkey's human rights record, including just in the last few weeks. And so this is going to be a more interesting, difficult relationship for him to navigate. And how does that then go over globally in terms of the way that it is being perceived? You know, we mentioned, of course, that you worked with Justin Trudeau's government, who took a very different approach on all of this. So how much of a contrast is this to the stance that Canada has previously had? I think it's a very significant contrast from the Trudeau era, where arguably Mr. Trudeau was going too far in the other direction of making values the centerpiece of Canadian foreign policy. Now, Mr. Carney has said that he wants to be principled and pragmatic. And by principled, he means standing up for values like human rights and democracy and the rule of law and pragmatic means that we will cooperate with countries that don't necessarily subscribe to those values like the same way we do that's fine but that means striking a balance and it's a tough balance to strike and there are a lot of people in this country who have been fighting for very foundational rights and I'm not sure I didn't hear the entire press conference between the two leaders but I'm not sure that any of that was mentioned. Certainly, it is a question that many have whether or not these issues will be raised by Canada's prime minister. We saw when there was the trip by the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, to Saudi Arabia, for example, that there was a question on whether or not there were going to be these issues that were raised. And we heard from the Canadian contingent that essentially we don't want to lecture our partners or trade partnerships here. I mean, what do you make of that approach? Well, listen, it is crucial that Canada expand its trade partnerships now at a time when trade is becoming weaponized, when we have to be clear about who we can depend on. We need to hedge against the possibility that the United States will continue to treat Canada as an unfriendly country. We have to do all of that, but we also have to be true to ourselves. And that's striking the balance. And as I mentioned, there are a lot of people here who are very brave people who have been fighting for fundamental rights. Some of them are in jail. And I think that they deserve to be mentioned. When we talk about the moral compass and how that factors into these sorts of conversations, how do you imagine the Canadian public views this, given the fact that the country is of course uh you know in in pain right now because of those u.s tariffs because of the trade war with the united states looking for that diversification to happen looking for opportunities outside of that so where does the canadian public stand on this i think you know i having followed the polls very closely i think the canadians are still very much and understandably preoccupied by the economic emergency we're facing uh with especially president donald trump and you know that has allowed our country to do things that we haven't been able to do before and mark Carney has led that and it's been a very very important set of initiatives but once the urgency of the Trump moment begins to pass I think Canadians will return to the position of wanting to see a balance between Canada standing up for human rights and also seeking to expand our trade relationships. I think that will also be true in the Liberal Party of Canada. And so I hope that Mr. Carney is going to be getting that balance right. When we talk about the strategic partnership that we heard the Prime Minister discuss, he said that it was resting on four pillars, trade and investment, defence and security, energy and ties between people. What does Canada stand to gain here as it develops this relationship? Well, we do have ways in which we can be cooperating economically with Turkey that could be very beneficial. One of the areas that was flagged was defense investment cooperation. And Turkey has some very advanced technologies, particularly in the drones area. And it makes sense to be working with Turkey to try and develop Canadian capabilities in those areas. And also Turkey is really looking for more energy and planning on dramatically expanding its electricity grid over the coming years. And it's not a coincidence that the Minister of Energy accompanied Mr. Carney on this trip. And I'm sure that they're hoping that Turkey will look at Canadian nuclear reactors as well. And we know that there are more trips by government officials to come. A trade mission we heard announced by the Prime Minister as well to come to Turkey. When it comes to that country, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, they've recently signed this MECA Joint Defense Agreement. What role does that sort of have when we talk about Canada entering in this relationship? And security is one of the key pillars here that was isolated or highlighted in those remarks. What role does that play in where Canada stands on this and how it's perceived? Yeah, I don't think that the relationship, the new defense relationship between Turkey and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia really implicates Canada one way or another very much. I don't see Canada's role, you know, in the Middle East other than those investment conversations with some of the Gulf countries really dramatically expanding. I think the security discussion is really focused mainly on the fact that Turkey is a NATO ally. But if you're asking about how Canada is perceived, I'm not sure if this was mentioned in your report, but When the gay rights activists were arrested and some of them incarcerated here six weeks ago, the European institutions and many of our European partners protested. And to my knowledge, Canada didn't say anything. Now, I have to be careful what I say here because I'm in Turkey. So I don't want to be too critical until I've left the country. But, you know, this is something that the prime minister is definitely going to have to balance going forward, especially since, you know, you've got all of these rights campaigners and some of them being arrested as recently as just less than six weeks ago. You know, and your caution sort of demonstrates exactly what we were talking about here. Thank you so much for that, Roland. We appreciate your time. OK, thank you. That is Roland Paris. He's a former foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Thanks.