Anand welcomes Turkish counterpart to Ottawa ahead of NATO summit in Ankara

Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand is meeting with her Turkish counterpart in Ottawa today, ahead of the NATO summit next month in Turkey’s capital Ankara.

Turkish Foreign Affairs Minister Hakan Fidan is visiting Toronto and Ottawa after pitching a strategic partnership with Canada.

Turkey is Canada’s military ally by virtue of its NATO membership and Fidan has echoed the Canadian government’s argument that Europeans should complement the military alliance without duplicating the work of NATO.

The two countries are not particularly close and geopolitical issues have strained ties.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has sought to build stronger relations with numerous countries other than the United States. Anand visited Ankara in March and said Canada is focused on four pillars of its relationship with Turkey: energy exports, economic opportunities and trade, defence and security, and people-to-people ties.

During that visit, Fidan said in Turkish that relations with Canada should be elevated “to a strategic level” to pursue mutual interests and global peace.

Anand told The Canadian Press in March that both countries were sorting out how to frame their ties.

“The ultimate nomenclature that is used to describe the relationship is part of what we are discussing, but there’s no question that we share a vision for an elevated bilateral relationship,” she said.

Global Affairs Canada’s online profile of Turkey calls it “an emerging market of broad interest to Canada,” with opportunities for Canadian companies in sectors such as agriculture, life sciences, mining and infrastructure.

Turkey has helped Ottawa evacuate Canadians from various Middle East crises and bring home activists detained by Israel for joining flotillas that sought to bring aid to Palestinians in Gaza.

The bilateral relationship has experienced tensions, especially over Canada’s large Armenian diaspora.

Canada has long held that Turkey committed a genocide against Armenians a century ago, a claim that Ankara has repeatedly denied.

Ottawa also suspended arms sales to Turkey seven years ago — and tightened those rules two years later, before dropping them — because of reports that Turkey was diverting Canadian military components to Azerbaijan for use against Armenia and ethnic Armenians.

Turkey has criticized Canada for granting refugee status to political dissidents that Ankara sees as insurrectionists. The Committee to Protect Journalists says Turkey is among the top jailers of journalists under the country’s terrorism and criminal codes.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 26, 2026.