Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Saturday he believed Egypt could join a defence pact signed between Turkiye, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia once several technical issues were resolved.
“Egypt is already our natural partner on all issues. I believe that at the next stage, Egypt will also be among us in the alliance. We already act toward one another as if we were alliance members. There are a few technical issues. Once these are implemented, there is no reason for Egypt not to be part of it,” he told Turkiye’s state-run Anadolu news agency.
The Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, signed in the Saudi city on Friday, aims to strengthen collective deterrence and empowers the three states to treat an attack against one of them as an attack against all of them.
Fidan further elaborated on this, saying the pact was technically the same as Nato’s Article 5 mutual defence agreement.
Article 5 of the North Atlantic alliance specifies that an attack on one of its members is an attack on all of them. It obliges allies to take action they deem necessary to assist the country under attack, including potentially the use of military force.
While the Makkah defence pact stipulates the same, Fidan explained that its text contained general commitments whose practical implementation would depend on discussions and decisions by relevant bodies.
A country would need to make a request for assistance and would determine the type of support it needs, he said, adding that the requests could be of different kinds, ranging from intelligence and logistics to ammunition or, if necessary, military units, depending on the scale of the threat.
The signatories, he said, would decide through consultations what degree, form, and format of support they would ask for in the event of an attack, but that no country would be considered a threat as long as a member state is not attacked.
Fidan also said that the new alliance was not directed against Iran or any other country, but rather served as a general pledge to support the three signatories’ security.
He further told Anadolu that discussions on the initiative began before the current war environment, when there was no US-Israel war on Iran and other regional countries had also been involved in the talks leading to the agreement.
Fidan said its signatories were countries that did not have expansionist policies. “They are countries concerned with their own borders, their own problems and their development, and, if possible, they want to contribute positively to their environment through good relations and good neighborliness.“
The three countries, he said, had different styles and capacities, but when brought together, they naturally formed a defence-oriented organisation rather than an offensive one.
“It is not an approach of going on the offensive and saying, ‘Let’s do this or that together.’ Therefore, unless it is attacked by a country, whether from inside or outside the region, this alliance cannot have any dispute with any country. But, of course, the power composition we have put forward will make a constructive contribution to regional stability,” he said.
He termed the pact the “most important step” toward bringing lasting stability to this region.
According to Fidan, the pact would be operational under a political and military committee comprising foreign and defence ministers and chiefs of general staff, similar to Nato structures.
The committee would translate the vision set by the leaders into decisions and carry out related work, while a secretariat would be established to implement those decisions, he explained.
More to follow
