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
Smart, independent reporting on Turkey's politics, economy and foreign affairs.
Saudi Arabia has sent Ankara a list of the assistance it wants to defend against Houthi attacks in Yemen under the Mecca Defense Agreement.
Despite opposition objections, the ruling AKP and its ally MHP hold a sufficient majority in parliament to pass the agreement.
Turkey and the United States have signed a grant agreement to evaluate next-generation nuclear energy technologies, expanding bilateral cooperation in the energy sector.
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.
Makkah Joint Defence Agreement including collective defense provision raised eyebrows as the full text of the agreement was not disclosed.
Aksa Energy has signed a 20-year agreement with the Electricity Company of Ghana to build and operate a natural gas plant in Takoradi.
A live signing ceremony crowning Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Al Zaidi's visit to Ankara was disrupted when a Development Road agreement went unsigned, prompting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to intervene on camera and Al Zaidi to confront his own transport minister.
The peace process, dubbed the Terror-Free Turkey, now awaits the 'framework law,' expected to be submitted before parliament goes into its summer recess. There appears to be no consensus, however, on the bill's exact timing, scope and the conditions on the ground. While the process remains in the waiting room, the Interior Ministry took a concrete step, lifting thousands of search points and checkpoints in the terror-affected region. The pro-Kurdish DEM Party, through all its spokespeople, is asking 'what the law is waiting for.' But reading between the lines of AKP and DEM Party statements reveals disagreements at the draft stage.
NATO has further reinforced the air defense it provides for Turkey, despite the agreement between the US and Iran to end the war.
Developments in Syria are emerging as a potential block to Turkey’s push for Kurdish peace. With the March 10 Agreement between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Damascus nearing its implementation deadline, Ankara is increasing pressure for compliance.
Friedrich Merz’s visit to Ankara marks a new phase in German-Turkish relations — the trip served domestic power dynamics in Berlin in political terms rather than through concrete agreements. The chancellor did not come because Turkey has fundamentally changed, but because Germany finds itself in deep economic and political uncertainty. By Ozan Demircan