Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, Pakistan sign joint defense deal

SANAA/RIYADH — Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye signed a joint defense agreement in Mecca on Friday, as the three countries are alarmed at a regional conflagration that has rained missile fire onto Gulf oil exporters.

The agreement was signed during a meeting between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

The 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.

While the statement did not give specifics on the commitments or obligations each had accepted under what it called the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, it said the pact was aimed at strengthening their collective security and promoting peace, security and stability in the region and beyond.

A Turkish official said the agreement was defensive in nature, was not directed against any specific actor, was open to other regional countries, and did not abrogate or replace any existing bilateral or multilateral arrangements.

Their pact follows nearly a year of negotiations, reported by Reuters in January, when Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Ankara favored a broader regional security platform to promote cooperation and stability.

Sharp escalation

The signing of the agreement came after a sharp escalation in the region. Yemen's Houthi group claimed that its militants had carried out a "large-scale" military operation in the eastern provinces of Marib and Hadramout on Thursday.

In a televised statement broadcast by the Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said the attacks hit military positions including military camps and troop gatherings belonging to the 1st and 3rd divisions of the newly formed, Saudi-backed Yemeni emergency forces.

He claimed that "hundreds" of government personnel were killed or wounded. He also said military bases on the Yemen-Saudi Arabia border, were targeted.

Sarea said the operation was carried out after the Houthis detected what he described as large-scale Saudi military buildups that had reached their "final stages", accusing Riyadh of preparing for large ground military operations against Houthi-controlled areas.

The Houthis killed at least 58 government troops in missile and drone attacks on Thursday, a military source said, in one of the deadliest days of the country's civil war in four years.

Meanwhile, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said on Friday that 11 civilians were injured in Houthi attacks in Saudi Arabia's Najran.

Coalition spokesman Turki Al-Malki said on X that the attack that took place on Thursday injured seven Saudi nationals, among them a woman and a four-year-old child who sustained second-degree burns, in addition to one Yemeni, two Egyptians and one Pakistani national.

Al-Malki said the Houthi group carried out the attacks using indiscriminate projectiles against civilian objects, describing the acts as a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.

He said the coalition would continue to take deterrent measures against such attacks to protect citizens.

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