Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said that we are working on a road map that paves the way for other countries to join the Joint Defense Agreement.
Fidan made these statements at a press conference held following the first meeting of the main committee established within the framework of the Mecca Defense Agreement.
On Monday, Türkiye will host the first ministerial meeting of the modern regional defense bloc between Ankara, Riyadh and Islamabad, according to what Turkish diplomatic sources reported.
Bangladesh revealed that it is considering joining the Mecca Agreement, and the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Humayun Cooper, said that discussions are ongoing in this regard with Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
The Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Sunday that the inaugural meeting of the Political and Defense Strategic Committee will be held in Istanbul on Monday, August 31st.
The ministry added that the foreign and defense ministers and the commanders of the Turkish and Saudi armies will attend the meeting.
The three countries signed the “Mecca Joint Defense Agreement” on August 7, months after the outbreak of the Iran War and the regional conflict that saw Tehran launch missiles and drones at energy-exporting Gulf states.
The agreement aims to enhance collective deterrence against any aggressive action.
It stipulates that an armed attack on any of the three countries will be considered an “attack on all,” similar to the collective defense clause contained in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
A source in the Turkish Foreign Ministry said, “International security issues will be on the agenda,” and the discussions are expected to include enhancing defense capabilities and interoperability between the armed forces, and consolidating cooperation in the defense industries, including joint production and development.
According to Agence France-Presse, the meeting will be chaired by the Turkish Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense, Hakan Fidan and Yaşar Guler, along with the Chief of the General Staff, General Selcuk Bayraktoglu.
Pakistan will be represented at the meeting by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, in addition to Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif and Army Commander Asim Munir, according to the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
For its part, Saudi Arabia will send, according to Turkish sources, Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan, Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman, and Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Fayyad bin Hamid Al-Ruwaili.
The committee is expected to establish a framework for a general secretariat and other mechanisms to coordinate work in areas of joint activity. It will also seek to prepare a road map to implement the Charter during the coming period, according to the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet.
The three countries are concerned about the military positions of Israel and Iran, while the United States faces challenges to contain the regional unrest that has caused a global energy crisis, according to Reuters.
Six months after the United States and Israel started the war on Iran, the negotiations reached a dead end.
The administration of US President Donald Trump intensified its efforts to punish Iran financially in what it described as “Economic Victory Day.”
Turkey - which has the second largest army in NATO - said that the agreement with nuclear-armed Pakistan and the largest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, could be expanded - with the possibility of Egypt joining - and was not aimed at getting rid of existing alliances.
Some analysts described this agreement as a "Sunni alliance" and even an "Islamic NATO."
Some of them believe that it represents a message to countries such as Iran and Israel, while others believe that this charter reflects the efforts of the three countries to reduce their security dependence on the United States.
The full text of the agreement was not published, which led to a lot of speculation about it.
Critics say that the national interests of these three countries, which do not share any common land border, are not necessarily compatible.
