Carney defends ties with Turkey amid country’s crackdown on LGBTQ groups

Prime Minister Mark Carney is defending deepening ties with Turkey despite a recent raid of LGBTQ groups in the country, saying his job is to safeguard human rights inside Canada but also find new export markets abroad to strengthen Canadian sovereignty.

Speaking to reporters in Istanbul on Friday, Mr. Carney offered more insight into his brand of foreign policy – which he calls “values-based realism” – that he has explained means doing business with countries even when Canada disagrees with how they conduct themselves. “Engagement is not approval,” he said.

He said not many countries can match Canada’s domestic commitment to human rights. “There are very few countries in this world that have the standards of Canada, the rights of Canada, the conviction of Canada, the constant reinforcement of those rights, so that all Canadians can live their lives as they choose,” he said.

Canada, Turkey announce strategic partnership to deepen energy, defence and trade ties

Mr. Carney struck a strategic partnership with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan this week during the first bilateral visit to the country by a Canadian Prime Minister, a deal that lays out plans for co-operation and trade in energy and defence, among other sectors.

Canada wants to sell Canadian CANDU nuclear reactors to Turkey, which plans to add 20 gigawatts of nuclear power by 2050.

The Prime Minister told reporters on Friday the chances of Canada making a CANDU sale have gone up since he took office.

“If you would have asked us a year ago how we would have pegged the chances, that would have been very low. Now there are good chances,” he said.

The new Canadian partnership with Turkey provides legitimacy to Mr. Erdogan, who critics say is responsible for Turkey’s democracy backsliding into an autocracy. The U.S. watchdog Freedom House scores Turkey as 32/100 on its civil liberties index, or “not free,” saying the President and his party “have become increasingly authoritarian in recent years, consolidating significant power through constitutional changes and by imprisoning opponents and critics.”

In recent months Turkey has taken over a pro-opposition media outlet, raided LGBTQ groups and convicted a stand-up comic of insulting the country’s President.

Mr. Carney, whose government is driving to reduce reliance on the increasingly protectionist United States, said he is committed to defending LGBTQ rights in Canada.

“Our first and foremost job is protecting, not just protecting LGBTQI rights and two-spirited rights in Canada, but promoting those rights and ensuring that all Canadians can live their full selves in Canada. So first and foremost, that’s our responsibility,” he said.

But part of protecting and safeguarding Canadians’ rights at home means strengthening the country’s independence and autonomy, the Prime Minister added.

“Part of the way we discharge that is to be a truly sovereign nation. Part of the way we become a truly sovereign nation and reinforce our sovereignty is to have a broad range of partnerships around the world,” he said.

Turkey, a country of 87 million that sits at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, is also important because of its location.

“Turkey is a formal partner of Canada in NATO and one of the most important geostrategic countries, not just in this region but in this world. So we need to engage, and we do engage.”

Asked if he was legitimizing Mr. Erdogan and the President’s actions by meeting with the Turkish leader in Turkey, Mr. Carney rejected this, saying “No.”

Carney in Turkey says ‘no merit’ to claims of Canada meddling in U.S. midterms

He said the degree of engagement Canada undertakes with countries does depend on the values of those nations.

But, he said, it’s important Canada build and sustain deeper relations with myriad countries given disorder around the globe.

“We are in a very dangerous world,” he said, “On one level, we’re in this spectacular setting, crossroads, all the history that’s here,” he said of Istanbul and Turkey.

He said if Canada doesn’t engage it can’t “be in the room” to raise Canadian perspectives on international challenges. The Prime Minister cited some of the geopolitical matters in regions near Turkey.

“Literally today, there are discussions about the war in Iraq, the war in Ukraine, the situation in Syria, the broader issues in the Middle East” and the prospect of “continued stabilization” in relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan,” he said.