Mecca defense pact not directed against any country, open to others: Pakistan
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar says the new defense agreement between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey is “purely defensive,” is not directed against any country, and remains open to other nations in the region.
The Mecca Joint Defense Agreement was signed on Friday by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, with the three countries seeking to strengthen security and defense cooperation.
Dar said in a post on X on Sunday that the agreement “is purely defensive in nature. It is not targeted against any country and its sole purpose is to further strengthen our ongoing efforts towards peace, stability and prosperity in the wider region.”
He added that the accord remained open to other countries in the region, provided they respected its principles and sought to resolve differences through peaceful means.
“The Makkah Accord remains open to any country in the region willing to uphold its fundamental principles and resolve differences through mutual respect, cooperation and peaceful means,” he noted.
The agreement stipulates that an armed attack against any one of the three signatories would be considered an attack against all three. Dar said the provision was consistent with the right to individual and collective self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan also said the agreement was not aimed at Iran or any other country.
Fidan described Pakistan’s participation as evidence that the initiative had a broader regional scope. He said Turkey’s vision was for the framework to expand further.
The three countries bring different strategic capabilities to the arrangement. Pakistan has extensive military experience and is the only nuclear-armed country in the Muslim world, Saudi Arabia provides significant economic resources and regional influence, while NATO member Turkey has a large military and a growing domestic defense industry.
However, defense analysts in Islamabad cautioned against equating the agreement with NATO. Pakistani defense analyst Abdullah Khan said that despite the collective-defense provision, the pact should not be interpreted as being directed against Iran or any other country.
West Asia has been in flames for nearly three years since Israel’s October 7, 2023, genocidal war on Gaza.
Israel has waged war in Gaza, invaded southern Lebanon, occupied territory in Syria, and launched two aggressions against Iran jointly with the US, prompting retaliatory Iranian strikes against US and Israeli targets in the region.
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