{"id":241351,"date":"2026-08-08T21:40:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T21:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/241351\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T21:40:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T21:40:13","slug":"turkey-says-new-defense-pact-with-saudi-arabia-and-pakistan-not-aimed-at-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/241351\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey says new defense pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan not aimed at Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) \u2014 A defense agreement<\/a> between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey is not aimed against Iran or any other country, Turkey\u2019s foreign minister said Saturday, describing the pact as an important step toward regional stability.<\/p>\n

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistan\u2019s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed the agreement in the Saudi holy city of Mecca on Friday. It states that an attack on one would be considered an attack on all three.<\/p>\n

The \u201cMecca Joint Defense Agreement\u201d brings together oil-rich Saudi Arabia<\/a> and nuclear power Pakistan as well as Turkey, which has NATO\u2019s second-largest army<\/a> and a rapidly growing defense industry. It deepens cooperation and deterrence at a time of increased regional uncertainty and threats from the war in Iran.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Turkey\u2019s state-run Anadolu Agency, Turkey\u2019s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan insisted that the three countries do not view any particular state as an adversary unless they take hostile action against them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have anything written down \u2014 nothing we\u2019ve signed \u2014 that defines a common threat,\u201d Fidan said. \u201cAny country that does not attack us is not a target for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Turkish minister described the agreement\u2019s clause on mutual defense as being \u201ctechnically the same\u201d as NATO\u2019s Article 5<\/a>, under which an attack on one of the 32 members is considered an attack on them all.<\/p>\n

Asked how the mechanism would work, Fidan said a member would need to formally request help and that the other two countries\u2019 assistance could range from intelligence sharing to logistic support \u2014 or the deployment of military units depending on the threat.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are multi\u2011layered matters that vary according to the scale of the threat,\u201d Fidan said. \u201cThis is the perspective we have set out so far in our work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Turkish minister said other nations \u2014 which he did not name \u2014 have expressed interest in joining the agreement, adding that he expects Egypt, which he described as a \u201cnatural partner,\u201d to participate \u201cat the next stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the deal, the foreign and defense ministers of the three countries, along with their military chiefs, would hold regular committee meetings. The three countries would also establish a secretariat, to be based in Saudi Arabia, Fidan said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANKARA, Turkey (AP) \u2014 A defense agreement between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey is not aimed against Iran…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[15655,197,651,1829,34,196,42328,768,3353,2291,650,81,3988,50,16816,1638,82],"class_list":["post-241351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iran","tag-egypt-government","tag-general-news","tag-hakan-fidan","tag-international-agreements","tag-iran","tag-iran-war","tag-mecca","tag-military-and-defense","tag-mohammed-bin-salman-bin-abdulaziz-al-saud","tag-north-atlantic-treaty-organization","tag-pakistan","tag-politics","tag-recep-tayyip-erdogan","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-shehbaz-sharif","tag-south-asia","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117062062761795474","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}