{"id":851587,"date":"2026-08-09T08:22:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T08:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/851587\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T08:22:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T08:22:16","slug":"turkiye-says-mecca-defence-pact-not-aimed-at-iran-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/851587\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkiye says Mecca defence pact not aimed at Iran | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The pact includes an Article 5-style mutual-defence clause, but questions remain over how it would operate in practice and how Tehran will respond.<\/p>\n

Turkish leaders have insisted that the new trilateral defence pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is not directed at Iran.<\/p>\n

Turkiye\u2019s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Saturday that the pact does not identify Iran, or any other country, as a common threat.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement was signed on Friday by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, stating that an\u00a0armed attack on one of the three countries would be considered an attack on them all.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no common threat that we have put in writing,\u201d Fidan told Turkey\u2019s state-run Anadolu agency, adding that countries that do not attack the signatories would not be considered targets.<\/p>\n

An Article 5-style commitment<\/p>\n

Fidan described the pact as \u201ctechnically\u201d similar to NATO\u2019s Article 5 collective-defence clause, under which an attack on one member is treated as an attack on all.<\/p>\n

But the response would depend on the circumstances.<\/p>\n

A country under attack would have to request assistance and specify what kind of support it needed, Fidan said. That could range from intelligence and logistics to ammunition or the deployment of military units.<\/p>\n

The alliance will also establish political and military committees, bringing together foreign and defence ministers and military chiefs, as well as a secretariat in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

Fidan said the three countries would work on joint training, intelligence sharing, logistics, threat assessments and military interoperability.<\/p>\n

\"DAMASCUS,Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan [File: Turkish Foreign Ministry\/Anadolu]<\/p>\n

Defence-industry cooperation is also expected to be a notable part of the pact. Fidan said it was one of the main issues discussed by the three leaders in Mecca, including how the countries could benefit from each other\u2019s military technologies.<\/p>\n

The Turkish minister said preparations for the agreement had been under way for nearly two years and eight months, suggesting it was not drawn up simply in response to the current tensions involving Iran.<\/p>\n

Iran pushes back<\/p>\n

Despite Ankara\u2019s assurances, some Iranian officials have questioned the agreement and warned Saudi Arabia against relying on its new partners for security.<\/p>\n

Mahmoud Nabavian, a member of Iran\u2019s parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said Saudi leaders should understand that cooperation with Turkiye and Pakistan would not guarantee their security.<\/p>\n

Another commission member, Ebrahim Rezaei, similarly dismissed the pact as a \u201cpaper agreement\u201d.<\/p>\n

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi did not directly mention the agreement in a message on X on Friday, but he called on regional states to rely on themselves and pursue what he described as \u201ctrue brotherhood\u201d.<\/p>\n

At the same time, he stressed the strength and readiness of Iran\u2019s armed forces.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Egypt could join next<\/p>\n

Fidan portrayed the agreement as part of a broader effort to give regional countries greater responsibility for their own security.<\/p>\n

\u201cExternal hegemons coming into the region do not solve the problems; they make them more acute,\u201d he told Anadolu.<\/p>\n

He described Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan as the \u201ccore countries\u201d of the initiative and made clear that Ankara wants the arrangement to expand.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder our president\u2019s vision, we should not remain limited to three countries,\u201d Fidan said. \u201cWe should grow and, if necessary, bring all countries under this umbrella.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several countries have already expressed interest, according to Fidan, who said he expected Egypt, which he described as a \u201cnatural partner\u201d, to join once outstanding technical issues were resolved.<\/p>\n

\"epa13053663Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, right, welcomes Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, left, to Egypt on June 21, 2026 [Mohamed Hossam\/EPA]<\/p>\n

For now, many of the practical details remain to be worked out, including how the three militaries would coordinate in a crisis.<\/p>\n

But the planned committees, permanent secretariat and focus on interoperability and defence-industry cooperation suggest the pact is intended to develop beyond a simple mutual defence declaration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The pact includes an Article 5-style mutual-defence clause, but questions remain over how it would operate in practice…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":851588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5806,43,5897,1259,44,9380,13341,41,39,42,40,3848],"class_list":["post-851587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-asia","tag-headlines","tag-iran","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-pakistan","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=851587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/851588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}