Symbolic imageAnkara says Mecca defence pact carries NATO-style obligations
Turkey's foreign minister Hakan Fidan said on Saturday the new Saudi-Turkish-Pakistani defence pact is technically the same as NATO's Article 5, but names no common threat.
The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, signed on Friday, 7 August by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, treats an armed attack on one signatory as an attack on all three. Fidan told the Anadolu agency that a state under attack would have to request help and specify what it needs, from intelligence and logistics to ammunition or the deployment of units. He said drafting took nearly two years and eight months, and Ankara wants the alliance widened beyond three members.
Tehran dismisses the pact
Fidan said countries that do not attack the signatories would not be targets. Iranian lawmaker Ebrahim Rezaei called the deal a "paper agreement".
Washington stays quiet
Al Jazeera reported no US response by Saturday. Kamran Bokhari of the Middle East Policy Council calls the pact a strategic signal rather than an operational alliance; analyst Sina Toosi sees a setback for Arab-Israeli normalisation.
Riyadh denies a new bloc
Saudi deputy minister Rayed Krimly said the pact was not meant to create a military axis, an arms race or nuclear ambitions; Saudi Arabia will host its secretariat.
Other opinions
TASS relays Fidan's NATO comparison without Tehran's reaction; China's Global Times casts the pact as a message to Washington.