Carney Heads to Turkey: Nuclear Plants, LNG and the Biggest 'Beyond America' Bet Yet

No Canadian prime minister has ever made a dedicated bilateral visit to Turkey. Mark Carney is about to become the first — and he's bringing an agenda that shows exactly where his government thinks Canada's future lies: anywhere but Washington.

Carney meets Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Thursday, then sits down with Turkish business leaders in Istanbul on Friday. According to Reuters, the two NATO allies are expected to sign a joint declaration deepening cooperation across four areas — defence, energy, the economy, and social and diplomatic ties — with committees set up in each to draft action plans. A Canadian government official, briefing reporters Tuesday, declined to confirm specifics but said the meetings would "advance cooperation in trade and investment, energy, defense and security and people-to-people ties."

The subtext isn't subtle. This is the latest stop in Carney's campaign to reduce Canada's trade dependence on the United States, amid a damaging trade war with Washington and a U.S. president who keeps questioning Canada's sovereignty.

Nuclear Power Tops the Agenda

The most concrete item on the table is nuclear. Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar told the Kanal 7 broadcaster on Sunday that nuclear power would be among the top agenda items — and Ankara expects a working group to study whether Canada's CANDU design could build a planned nuclear plant on Turkey's Black Sea coast.

The competition is serious. Turkey has also been talking to South Korea's Korea Electric Power Corporation and China's State Power Investment Corporation about its planned second and third nuclear plants; Russia's Rosatom is building the first. A CANDU win — the reactor is owned by Canadian engineering firm AtkinsRealis — would be a landmark export for Canada's nuclear industry.

Energy talks are also expected to cover potential Turkish purchases of Canadian liquefied natural gas, plus critical minerals — the two commodities where Canada's pitch to the world is strongest right now.

Drones, Ships and a Thaw in Defence Ties

On defence, the discussions are expected to focus on drones and naval cooperation — areas where Trump's policies toward Canada have, in the words of Turkish defence analysts, created openings for closer collaboration on ammunition production, drones and naval systems.

The groundwork was laid in 2024, when Canada removed weapons-export controls on Turkey, including on the optical technology used in the drones Turkey now exports to dozens of countries. Carney will be accompanied by Foreign Minister Anita Anand and Energy Minister Tim Hodgson, and is expected to meet executives from defence firms and energy businesses including Calik Holding and Sabanci Holding.

One note of caution from those same analysts: major agreements are unlikely to materialise in the short term. This trip is about opening doors, not signing contracts.

The Bigger Picture

Look at the pattern and it's hard to miss. Free trade talks with Turkey. A sovereign wealth fund to back Canadian projects. Energy deals in Europe and Asia. Every move Carney makes is about the same thing: building an economy that doesn't live or die on decisions made in Washington.

Ottawa says it's most interested in Turkey's aerospace, defence, energy, mining, high-tech and agriculture sectors — a shopping list that reads like a diversification strategy in bullet form. Whether Ankara delivers is another question. But for a prime minister who just watched Alberta vote to stay in Canada by roughly three to one, arriving in Ankara with the country behind him is not a bad way to start.

Editor's note: we couldn't verify a fresh video from a Canadian outlet covering the visit, so we skipped the embed rather than shoehorn in an unrelated clip. The links below take you straight to the reporting.

Sources

• Reuters (via SRN News) — "Canada, Turkey to agree during Carney visit to deepen defence and energy ties, source says" (October 20, 2026)
• Reuters (via Devdiscourse) — "Canada, Turkey to agree during Carney visit to deepen defence and energy ties, source says" (October 21, 2026)

Photo: European Union / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0) — Mark Carney with EU leaders at the 2025 EU-Canada summit (file photo).