Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey Sign Joint Defence Agreement Amid Regional Tensions

Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey signed a joint defence agreement in Mecca on Friday, wedding Sunni Muslim US allies alarmed at a regional conflagration that has rained missile fire onto Gulf oil exporters. Iran and its allies have been firing on Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, and blockading their energy shipments, since the US and Israel attacked it on February 28 in a major escalation of years of regional tumult. The “Mecca Joint Defence Agreement” is intended to strengthen collective deterrence against any act of aggression and stipulates that an armed attack ‌against any of the three would be regarded as an attack on all, they said in a joint statement. However, the statement did not give specifics on the commitments each had accepted and it was not clear how far their agreement would bind them to any particular military action in each other’s defence. Turkish Vice-President Cevdet Yilmaz said the agreement was not aimed at any specific country. A Turkish official added that it was purely defensive and did not abrogate any existing agreements the countries had with other states.