Following the independence of Sri Lanka on 4 February 1948, Turkish Embassy in New Delhi was accredited to Sri Lanka and the Embassy of Sri Lanka in Tel Aviv was accredited to Türkiye.

Later on, the Embassy of Sri Lanka in Ankara was opened in 2012 and the Turkish Embassy in Colombo was opened in 2013.

The relations between Türkiye and Sri Lanka are developing with a positive agenda. The visit of President H.E. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the then Prime Minister of Türkiye to Sri Lanka on 10 February 2005, in the context of his tour to the countries affected by tsunami that occurred on 26 December 2004 in the Indian Ocean, was an important threshold in the Türkiye-Sri Lanka bilateral relations.

The visit paid by H.E. Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa, the then President of Sri Lanka in 2008, has been the first presidential visit from Sri Lanka to Türkiye.

H.E. Rauff Hakeem, Minister of City Planning and Water Supply, and President of the Sri Lanka-Türkiye Interparliamentary Friendship Group, who was assigned by the then President H.E. Ranil Wickremasinghe for strengthening bilateral relations with Türkiye, paid an official visit to Türkiye on 2-8 February 2016.

H.E. Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Minister of Foreign Affairs, paid an official visit to Sri Lanka on 14-15 June 2016. This was the first official visit by a Turkish Foreign Minister to Sri Lanka.

The first round of Türkiye-Sri Lanka political consultations between the two delegations headed by the Foreign Deputy Minister Ambassador H.E Sedat Önal and Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ambassador H.E. Ravinatha Aryasinha was held on 10 May 2019 in Colombo.