Turkey says Iran not target of pact with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan

International Turkey says Iran not target of pact with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan Comments: by Mira Bhakta - 08/08/26 6:25 PM ET Comments: Link copied by Mira Bhakta - 08/08/26 6:25 PM ET Comments: Link copied

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Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan clarified Saturday that the NATO-like agreement between Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is not targeted at any particular country amid speculation that the pact was formed in response to the ongoing war in Iran.

Fidan, in an interview with Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency conducted a day after the three countries announced the joint effort, compared its purpose to NATO’s Article 5 — which deems any attack on a member country an attack on all of them.

“We don’t have anything written down, nothing we’ve signed, that defines a common threat. Any country that does not attack us is not a target for us,” he said.

The foreign minister added that this pact had been in preparation for two years, before the current war in Iran.

The “Mecca Joint Defense Agreement” established a collective defense alliance that combines Saudi Arabia’s oil, Pakistan’s nuclear power and Turkey’s military — which is the second largest in NATO, the foreign minister said.

“The agreement is intended to strengthen collective deterrence against any act of aggression, and stipulates that any armed attack against any one of the three states shall be regarded as an attack against them all,” the joint statement announcing the pact reads. “It further provides for the enhancement of all aspects of defense cooperation among the three states.”

In his interview, Fidan said there would be regular meetings in Saudi Arabia between the countries with appropriate military and foreign policy officials. A secretariat still needed to be established, he added.

The current union between the three Middle Eastern countries comes after Iran-backed Yemeni Houthi rebels targeted Saudi Arabian naval vessels, leading the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Defense to bring Turkey and Pakistan into its multinational maritime defense coalition alongside 12 other countries.

These attacks occurred in the southern Red Sea one of the alternate shipping routes established due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, as the U.S.-Iran conflict had then stretched into six months.

With its shared attack philosophy, the new alliance is set to be put to the test — as Saudi Arabia’s energy infrastructure has also become a target for Iranian attacks. In late July, the U.S. military said it knocked down an Iranian missile barrage and worked with Saudi Arabian forces to strike sites Tehran-backed militias had used to launch attacks.

Fidan concluded Saturday’s interview asserting that, despite the broad nature of the new agreement, “the closure of the Red Sea trade basin is, of course, a matter directly related to our interests.”

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