Turkey ratifies Makkah defence pact with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia

Turkey's parliament ratified the Makkah joint defence agreement with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia on 6 November, approving it by 279 votes to 119 in the 600-seat Grand National Assembly, BBC Urdu reported. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia ratified the pact earlier, so the Turkish vote completes the process needed to bring it into force.

Under the agreement, an armed attack on any one of the three members is treated as an attack on all of them. The three governments say it is defensive, aims to strengthen collective security and is not directed against any country.

The pact was signed in Makkah on 7 August by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. Its secretariat will be based in Saudi Arabia, with retired Pakistani general Noman Mahmood named as its first secretary general. It runs for an initial 10 years, and a member must give three months' notice to leave.

Much of the Turkish debate turned on what the agreement commits Ankara to. Gulistan Kilic Kocyigit, a Kars MP and deputy parliamentary group leader of the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party, asked what procedure Turkey would follow if Pakistan sought military help under the pact, and whether the framework was aimed at other regional countries, particularly Iran. She said the Turkish public and parliament had not approved obligations that could put the country into a foreign war, and that decisions taken by the leaderships in Ankara, Islamabad and Riyadh should not be paid for with the lives of Turkish young people. She also asked the government to take parliament and the public into its confidence on the pact's political and military implications.

Murat Emir, another opposition MP, said the agreement had been brought forward to send Turkish soldiers to the desert in Yemen, a reference to possible military support for Saudi Arabia over Houthi attacks.

Fuat Oktay, chairman of parliament's foreign affairs committee, said Turkey could not be dragged into a conflict against its will, and that separate parliamentary approval would still be required to send troops abroad. Ziya Altunyaldiz of the ruling party said the pact was not against any country and was meant to promote peace and security.

Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the Makkah alliance could later take in other regional countries that share its view of peace, stability and cooperation. He described the aim as stronger collective defence and said the arrangement rested on the idea of regional solutions to regional problems.