NATO Summit
Carney to attend NATO Summit in Turkiye, make first Saudi Arabia visit by a Canadian PM in 26 years
Ottawa: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will travel to Turkiye next week to attend the 2026 NATO Summit before making the first visit by a Canadian prime minister to Saudi Arabia in 26 years, the Prime Minister's Office announced on Tuesday.
The visit, scheduled for July 6-10, comes as Canada ramps up defence spending and pursues new international partnerships amid evolving global security challenges.
During the NATO Summit in Ankara from July 6 to 8, Carney will meet allied leaders to discuss strengthening the alliance, enhancing collective security, and continuing support for Ukraine.
The government said Canada has reached NATO's 2% defence spending target for the first time since the end of the Cold War and is on track to meet the alliance's new 5% target by 2035.
Carney will then travel to Saudi Arabia from July 8 to 10 for talks with Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman, marking the first official visit to the kingdom by a Canadian prime minister since 2000.
According to the Prime Minister's Office, the leaders will discuss expanding cooperation in energy, critical minerals, defence, infrastructure and investment, while exploring opportunities in artificial intelligence, clean technology, agriculture, tourism and life sciences.
"Canada is rebuilding, rearming, and reinvesting in the Canadian Armed Forces," Carney said.
"We've delivered the largest increase in defence investment in a generation, we've met our NATO defence expenditure targets for the first time since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and we are building a dense web of new partnerships."
The government said Canada has also joined the European Union's Security Action for Europe (SAFE) initiative as its first non-European member and recently launched the Defence Investment Agency and a new Defence Industrial Strategy to modernise military procurement and strengthen domestic defence industries.
Saudi Arabia was Canada's second-largest trading partner in the Gulf region in 2025, with bilateral trade valued at C$3.5 billion, according to the government.
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