SAUDI ARABIA LISTS HELP NEEDED UNDER MECCA PACT
Saudi Arabia has sent Ankara a list of the assistance it wants to defend against Houthi attacks in Yemen under the Mecca Defense Agreement.
Analysis
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Saudi Arabia has sent Ankara a list of the assistance it wants to defend against Houthi attacks in Yemen under the Mecca Defense Agreement.
The Mecca Joint defense Agreement signed by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan at the beginning of last month came as a surprise to many, although Turkey was interested in joining the defense agreement signed by the latter two a year ago. The new agreement goes further than defense cooperation due to a collective security pledge modelled on NATO’s famous Article 5.
On Friday — a day of particular symbolic weight for the Islamic world — President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif put their signatures to a trilateral defense agreement in Mecca, Islam’s holiest city.