Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan have signed a joint defence agreement, declaring that an attack on any of the three countries would be considered an attack on all of them.
The pact was announced on Friday at a summit involving Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Mecca.
The signing of the agreement came amid recent conflicts in the Middle East, which saw Iran attack several countries in the region, including Saudi Arabia, in response to the military strikes on the Islamic Republic by the United States and Israel.
The new Mecca Joint Defence Agreement aims “to strengthen collective deterrence against any act of aggression, and stipulates that any armed attack against any one of the three States shall be regarded as an attack against them all,” a joint statement reads.
“It further provides for the enhancement of all aspects of defence co-operation among the three States,” it added.
According to reports, the pact imposes no specific obligations on each of the three Sunni Muslim countries but contains pledges of mutual military support, with a Turkish official quoted by Reuters news agency saying the agreement was “purely defensive in nature”.
Last year, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed a similar defence pact, which drew condemnation from India, which is constantly at loggerheads with Pakistan.
“A politically unstable and economically broken Pakistan as a security provider is a dangerous proposition. Saudi Arabia knows this will be construed in India as a threat to India’s security.
“Given the tensions between Pakistan and India, this Saudi step is strategically most adventurous,” former Indian foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal said in response to the agreement in an X statement at the time.