The Mecca Defense Agreement signed by Türkiye, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia on Friday is planned to be opened to other countries in the region. Türkiye's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said other countries want to join the agreement and that the text was not prepared against any country.
Fidan made the remarks during a meeting with editors in Ankara on Saturday. He said the agreement was technically similar to Article 5 of NATO, which governs collective defense.
Mecca Agreement targets regional security
Fidan said countries in the region need to establish more institutional structures to protect one another's security, economic stability, development and prosperity. He said dominant powers from outside the region often aggravate its problems rather than solving them, resulting in high costs.
Recalling that Türkiye has good relations with countries in the region, Fidan said these ties had long remained dependent on prevailing conditions and political assessments. He said the relationships needed to be transformed into more structural, professional and self-sustaining partnerships.
Fidan said the region had faced war, occupation, displacement and instability for years. He said economic and social integration could not advance without security and that greater integration was needed to reduce regional instability and improve the prosperity of its peoples.
Two years and eight months of preparation
Fidan said two years and eight months of work had gone into transforming the Mecca Defense Agreement from an idea into a conceptual framework and then into a formal text. During this period, talks were held with partners and other countries in the region.
Fidan said signing the agreement was not the end of the process and announced plans to establish a general secretariat to oversee implementation of the defense agreement between the three countries. Political and military committees are expected to translate the vision set out by the leaders into decisions and carry out the necessary work.
Fidan said the assistance mechanism would be activated at the request of the country under attack and that the country concerned would decide the nature of the assistance. He said intelligence, logistical support, ammunition or, at a later stage, military units could be requested, adding that support would be shaped in stages according to the scale of the threat.
Three countries to expand defense industry cooperation
Fidan said defense industry cooperation was one of the topics discussed most extensively during the leaders' talks on Friday. He said the discussions covered the countries' use of one another's defense technologies, interoperability, mutual training, logistical support, threat analysis and intelligence sharing.
Pointing to Türkiye's decades of experience as a NATO member, Fidan stressed that the Mecca Agreement was not offensive in nature. He said the agreement created a basis for solidarity in which the signatory countries would not pose threats to one another and would contribute to one another's security.
Fidan specifically said Iran was not the target of the agreement. He said no state that does not attack the signatory countries would be targeted under the agreement, adding that the joint defense structure would contribute to regional stability.
Agreement to be opened to countries in the region
Fidan said Türkiye's vision was not limited to the three countries and that they wanted all countries in the region to be able to join the Mecca Agreement if needed. He said the agreement aimed to establish lasting stability in a region long associated with instability.
Fidan said Türkiye evaluates the strategic areas between the Middle East, the Caucasus, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, the Balkans and Europe together with their different conditions. He said security and economic structures in these regions should be developed in cooperation with regional countries rather than through a notion of dominance.
Fidan said the ceasefire was holding in the Caucasus, Armenia and Azerbaijan were moving toward a permanent peace agreement, and Türkiye was supporting the process. He said similar security or economic structures could be established in the Caucasus and Central Asia if needed.
Security in the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz
Fidan said Saudi Arabia had addressed Red Sea security at a meeting attended by the chiefs of general staff of 40 countries, in terms of global trade and the security of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Fidan said Türkiye was directly affected by trade flows in the Red Sea and that the President had given the necessary approvals for Türkiye to participate in the meetings.
Recalling that the Red Sea opens into the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal, Fidan said Türkiye should have a say in the security structures established in the region because of its ports and commercial activity in the Mediterranean.
Fidan said Saudi Arabia had neither a strategy nor an intention to go to war with Iran or eliminate Iran, adding that Riyadh wanted the violence in the Strait of Hormuz and the war in the region to end as soon as possible. Stressing that military intervention was not a solution, Fidan said the issues needed to be addressed through dialogue.
