Turkiye says it is ready to help meet Saudi Arabia’s military needs as Riyadh faces escalating attacks from Yemen’s Houthis, potentially putting a newly signed Mecca defence pact to its first major test. Last month, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, which treats an armed attack on any of its three member countries as an attack on all three, amid growing regional tensions. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Saudi Arabia may require military assistance, particularly on “technical issues”, and that Ankara would have no problem providing it.
His comments come as Houthi missile and drone attacks increasingly target Saudi cities, energy infrastructure and shipping, opening another front in a wider regional conflict that began with the US-Israeli war on Iran in February. The escalation has also raised the stakes for global energy supplies, as the Iran-aligned Houthis tightened their grip on the Red Sea, which has been used as an alternative route for Saudi oil exports amid the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. So, what does Turkiye’s offer mean in practice, and will the defence pact trigger military involvement by its members?
Speaking to Turkish media on Saturday, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Saudi Arabia could have military requirements because of the continuing Houthi attacks and that Ankara was prepared to provide assistance under its defence agreement with Riyadh and Islamabad. He said Saudi Arabia “may have some military needs, especially on some technical issues”, adding that Turkiye would have “no issues in meeting these”. Fidan did not specify what assistance Turkiye might provide.
Turkiye, which has NATO’s second-largest military, has condemned the Houthi attacks and called for them to stop immediately. Nawaf Obaid, a senior research fellow at King’s College London, said Saudi Arabia and its allies are putting together a coordinated military response to recent Houthi attacks, arguing that Riyadh is less isolated than it may appear. Obaid said the response “is coming”, adding: “It is going to be sequenced.
It is going to be massive. It is going to be fused together, and it’s going to be land, sea and air.” The analyst said countries had already begun moving weapons systems into Saudi Arabia and deploying fighter jets into the Red Sea, identifying Turkiye as a key participant and Egypt as a possible partner in a more limited operational role. However, Al Jazeera could not independently verify the claims made by Obaid.
Meanwhile, Mohamad Elmasry, a professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, said that “the Saudis are kind of stuck”. Allies are producing some measure of support – logistics support, intelligence, weapons – but it doesn’t look like the Pakistanis or the Turks or the Egyptians or the Americans, or anyone else, wants to get directly involved in kinetic military action,” Elmasry told Al Jazeera. Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan formally named the arrangement the Mecca Defence Alliance on August 31, after officials meeting in Istanbul agreed to set up a secretariat in Riyadh, to be headed initially by a Pakistani secretary-general.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
