Top officials from the countries party to the historic Mecca Joint Defense Agreement convened in Istanbul on Monday on the occasion of the first meeting of the Strategic, Political and Defense Committee established to advance the deal. An army of journalists, including Daily Sabah managing editor Batuhan Takış, covered the key meeting highly anticipated by friends and foes of Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
Speaking after the meeting, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said they decided to name the alliance the Mecca Defense Alliance. He said the first secretary-general of the alliance would be a Pakistani official and the secretariat's offices would be based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He emphasized that the alliance would "reduce uncertainty and instability" in the region.
Along with Fidan, the meeting was attended by Türkiye's National Defense Minister Yaşar Güler and Chief of the General Staff General Selçuk Bayraktaroğlu, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar, Federal Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif, and Chief of the Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir and Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan, Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman, and Chief of the General Staff General Fayyadh bin Hamed Al Ruwaili.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed the "Joint Defense Agreement" in Mecca on Aug. 7.
“We took a historic step in Mecca under the leadership of our President. The agreement is a product of the principle of regional ownership. As we have always stated, attempts to impose solutions on our region from outside do not provide remedies to our problems, on the contrary, they can lead to the payment of a heavy price. It has become an urgent necessity for the countries of the region to act together for security, stability, prosperity, and lasting peace, and to give an institutional character to the steps they take in this direction. With this agreement, the process of establishing a new security and cooperation architecture in our region has thus begun,” Fidan said in a news conference following the meeting.
He stated that the alliance will seek to establish a security architecture. In response to questions, he said they were open to expansion, underlining that its main purpose was to include more countries. He said that the alliance would reduce uncertainty, instability in the region and they hoped that it would be key to peace. Turkish officials have earlier stated that they were open to expanding the alliance to include other countries, particularly Egypt.
“We held a comprehensive exchange of views on the concrete steps we will take in the implementation of the agreement. As of today, we have also begun work on establishing the institutional structure envisaged by the agreement. First and foremost, we reached an agreement on the official name of our alliance. The official name of our alliance is the Mecca Defense Alliance. As you know, the Mecca Defense Alliance Agreement envisaged the establishment of a secretariat. It was decided that this secretariat would be established in Riyadh. There had also been a general agreement that the first Secretary-General would be a Pakistani colleague. In the discussions we held today, we reached preliminary decisions on the steps to be taken from this point forward, including which steps would be taken and when in order to institutionalize the alliance. Our brothers expressed their views during the meeting with a great deal of harmony and depth. I once again wish that the decisions taken here will be auspicious and beneficial, and I would like to extend my sincere thanks in advance to everyone who has contributed to the efforts to institutionalize the alliance,” Fidan added.
“Signed with our vision of a secure, stable, and prosperous future, this alliance is defense-oriented. The alliance is based on principles of international law, including respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states and non-interference in their internal affairs. We would like to emphasize once again here that the alliance is not directed against any state, on the contrary, it is open to all states in our region that abide by these fundamental principles. It is our shared aspiration to advance the peaceful vision put forward by the Mecca Defense Alliance together with other friendly countries that share the principles at the heart of the agreement,” he said.
As the news of the alliance circulated, speculation was rife that it was squarely aimed at deterring Iran amid the U.S.-Iran war that spilled into U.S. allies in the region. The three countries rejected this but underlined that an attack on one country party to the agreement would be deemed as an attack on all.
Fidan also clarified that the alliance did not contradict Türkiye’s membership of NATO. “It does not eliminate or replace Türkiye's obligations arising from NATO, in particular, or from its other alliances and agreements. Rather, it is complementary to all of them,” he said.
“With today's inaugural meeting of the Strategic Political and Defense Committee of the Mecca Defense Alliance, we have demonstrated that we are ready to assume responsibility for regional peace, security, and stability. We will continue to ensure close cooperation and coordination with friendly countries, particularly Pakistan and Saudi Arabia,” he stated.
In response to a question, Fidan slammed the Israeli administration, singling out Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "This murderer should be stopped. He is the common enemy of humanity," he said.
“From the moment the electoral process began (in Israel), there has been an increasingly hostile rhetoric toward Türkiye from the Netanyahu government, including Netanyahu himself and his supporters, as well as approaches targeting our President and some of our colleagues. We have been following this from the very beginning.
"Netanyahu, the murderer and perpetrator of genocide, is not a person who should be taken seriously. He has become a common enemy of humanity, the international community, and global security. The principal party Netanyahu is accountable to is the international community and the international system. Because Netanyahu, his mentality, and the genocidal group acting alongside him constitute a threat not only to Türkiye but to global security as a whole. It would be a major mistake to think of this as merely Türkiye's problem. Therefore, the international community must fulfill the responsibility it has failed to fulfill until now and stop this murderer, this perpetrator of genocide.
"It is now necessary to prevent this perpetrator of genocide from causing further harm to the region, to Israel, to the Jewish people, and to the entire world. In other words, this murderer, who takes pleasure in spilling Palestinian and Muslim blood, must now be stopped.
"The continuation of this situation is also causing great harm to Israel, while it is already causing immense harm to the Palestinians and the region. When you look at his statements, he does not want a Palestinian state to be established, nor does he want the ongoing occupation of countries in the region to come to an end. He wants the continuation of a genocidal and expansionist approach that threatens regional and international security,” he said.
