President Erdoğan: Relations with Canada have been elevated to the level of 'strategic partnership'

President Erdoğan holds a joint press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who came to Turkey for official contacts.

At the beginning of his speech, Erdoğan stated that he was very pleased to host Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and his accompanying delegation in Türkiye, pointed out that the visit was a historical turning point, and wished that high-level contacts between the two countries would continue.

Stating that all aspects of bilateral relations were discussed in detail during the meeting, President Erdoğan said:

We had the opportunity to touch on regional and global issues. One of the most concrete outcomes of this visit was undoubtedly our decision to elevate our relations with Canada to the level of strategic partnership. With the contribution of our strategic partnership decision, we aim to implement new projects in many areas such as energy, trade, transportation and defense industry in the coming period. Today, we adopted an action plan that includes concrete steps we will take in this direction. First of all, we decided to start free trade agreement negotiations before the end of the year in order to increase trade and investments.

“We are determined to raise our relations with Canada to the level of strategic partnership” President Erdoğan: We aim to implement new projects in many areas such as energy, trade, transportation and defense industry in the coming period. https://t.co/Nfh5GlHpiR

In parallel with this process, we will use existing mechanisms, including the Joint Economic and Trade Committee, more effectively to address all aspects of our economic relations. We will host the next meeting of this committee in 2027, this time with the participation of our private sectors. With these steps we will take, we hope to increase our trade volume, which is currently around 3 billion dollars, first to 5 billion and then to 10 billion dollars. With the updated Air Transport Agreement, we will approximately double the direct flights between our countries.

“We hope to increase our trade volume with Canada to 10 billion dollars” President Erdoğan: We decided to start the Free Trade Agreement negotiations before the end of the year. We will approximately double direct flights between our countries. https://t.co/KWJqcGdF4D

Today we also evaluated joint investment opportunities in third countries. We believe that there are important cooperation opportunities in a wide geography from Africa to Latin America, from Central Asia to the Far East. We hope that the memorandum of understanding to be signed tomorrow between Turkish Eximbank and the Canadian Export Development Agency will lead to joint projects in third countries.

Source: TRT Haber Açık RSS (Gündem) (Open Press / Translated Full Text)