despite previous tensions<\/a> over the Egyptian military\u2019s 2013 overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi, the conflict in Libya and the discovery of gasfields in the Eastern Mediterranean.<\/p>\nBut analysts said Cairo may be wary of the potential military obligations that could come with a binding defence treaty with states whose interests do not always align with its own as well as the implications for its existing peace treaties.<\/p>\n
\u201cEgypt may join only if the language protects its aid relationship with Washington, doesn\u2019t undermine existing alliances and peace treaties, and maintains its own freedom to decide when and where it fights,\u201d Karim Elgendy, associate fellow at Chatham House\u2019s Middle East and North Africa Programme, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the pact stays a political framework with room to calibrate each response, Cairo can live with it and may eventually sign. If it hardens into an obligation that could pull Egyptian forces into someone else\u2019s war, the answer is likely to be negative,\u201d Elgendy said.<\/p>\n
Technical issues holding Egypt back could be both \u201clegal and operational\u201d, Elgendy added. \u201cOn the legal side, Egypt needs to know exactly what it is committing to defend, and it will want assurances so that a signature never reads as a commitment against Israel or as taking Ankara\u2019s side in Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
For Bakir, Cairo\u2019s decision will come down to how it weighs the benefits of membership against the diplomatic complications.\u00a0 Egypt\u2019s decision on whether to join the pact will hinge on the level of \u201cstrategic value\u201d it believes it brings as well as its ability to \u201cmanage relations with countries whose interests\u201d contrast with or even \u201cactively oppose\u201d the alliance, he said.<\/p>\n
Ahmed Aboudouh, an associate fellow with Chatham House\u2019s Middle East and North Africa Programme, told Al Jazeera that while Egypt broadly shares the trilateral pact\u2019s security concerns, it \u201cdoes not share its underpinning threat perception\u201d and may be resistant to \u201csecurity commitments\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cCairo\u2019s preference is to be part of overlapping regional security arrangements that are narrow in scope and are issue-related \u2026 rather than being entangled in defence commitments with elevated risks\/cost,\u201d Aboudouh said.<\/p>\n
He added that Egypt may still opt to join the pact in the future but it would be a \u201ccomplex decision\u201d.<\/p>\n
Which other countries could join?<\/p>\n
Several officials have suggested other Gulf countries could eventually join the alliance.<\/p>\n
In a post on X, former Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani expressed hope that all members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) would \u201ctake the initiative to join\u201d the pact. In addition to Saudi Arabia, the GCC includes Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n
Fidan also spoke about the alliance bringing in more regional countries, saying some nations, which he did not name, had already expressed interest. \u201cUnder our president\u2019s vision, we should not remain limited to three countries. We should grow and, if necessary, bring all countries under this umbrella,\u201d Fidan said.<\/p>\n
Among the Gulf states, Elgendy said, \u201cthe names to watch first are Qatar and Kuwait.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both countries are \u201cclose to all three signatories\u201d and \u201chave the strongest motive to buy extra insurance\u201d after feeling \u201cexposed\u201d during the United States-Israel war on Iran and by Israel\u2019s strike on Doha<\/a> in September, he said.<\/p>\nBakir similarly identified Qatar as the \u201cmost natural\u201d Gulf state to opt in with Kuwait another possible candidate. He also said Azerbaijan, Syria and Jordan could also join \u201crelatively quickly\u201d.<\/p>\n
Elgendy expressed scepticism about the pact transforming into a broader bloc. \u201cThis looks like a coalition of the willing that will grow on a case-by-case basis, shaped by each capital\u2019s own risk calculus,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Turkiye wants to expand its newly formed defence pact with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to include more countries,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[949,3323,2523,8,246,391,9,1425,279,951,7,971,2073],"class_list":["post-63201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-stories","tag-asia","tag-egypt","tag-gcc","tag-headlines","tag-middle-east","tag-military","tag-news","tag-pakistan","tag-qatar","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-top-stories","tag-turkey","tag-weapons"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/117066281940931436","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}