Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has said that Saudi Arabia may have unmet military needs from the attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels and that Turkiye would consider how to support the kingdom as part of a trilateral defence pact. Speaking to Turkish broadcaster NTV on Friday, Fidan said it was unacceptable for Saudi Arabia to be dragged into the US-Iran war, adding that Riyadh had no desire to join the conflict. He added that proposals had been conveyed to all sides in an effort to end the fighting, without further elaborating. The Iran-backed Houthi rebels and Saudi Arabia continue trading attacks in an escalating war in Yemen, as the Houthis press gains that have brought large stretches of the Red Sea coast, including the strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait, under their control.
Pakistan has made a similar pledge to defend Saudi Arabia under the defence pact. Lieutenant-General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, a spokesperson for Pakistan’s military, told Arab News on Thursday that Islamabad would defend Saudi Arabia “to any extent”, including “physically”, though he did not say whether Riyadh had asked for more Pakistani troops. Pakistan’s Foreign Office has said no military response is currently under discussion under the pact, adding that Islamabad would act “when time comes”. The trilateral agreement, known as the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, was signed on August 7 in Mecca by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
The three countries formally named the arrangement the Mecca Defence Alliance on August 31, after officials meeting in Istanbul agreed to set up a secretariat in Riyadh, to be headed initially by a Pakistani secretary-general. Its founding principle is that an armed attack against any one of the three states will be treated as an attack against all three. Fidan said at the time the alliance was built on “respecting the sovereignty of other states, territorial integrity and not intervening in internal affairs”, and remained open to other countries joining. Analysts have questioned how much substance lies behind the pact so far, noting it lacks the integrated command structure and standing forces that underpin NATO.
Its institutional shape, including how the mutual defence clause would actually be triggered, remains unclear. The trilateral pact was struck as Gulf states grow increasingly concerned about being pulled into the wider US-Iran war, which has continued for more than six months since Washington and Israel first struck Iran in February.
