ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A defense agreement between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey is not aimed against Iran or any other country, Turkey’s foreign minister said Saturday, describing the pact as an important step toward regional stability.Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed the agreement in the Saudi holy city of Mecca on Friday. It states that an attack on one would be considered an attack on all three.The “Mecca Joint Defense Agreement” brings together oil-rich Saudi Arabia and nuclear power Pakistan as well as Turkey, which has NATO’s second-largest army and a rapidly growing defense industry. It deepens cooperation and deterrence at a time of increased regional uncertainty and threats from the war in Iran.In an interview with Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan insisted that the three countries do not view any particular state as an adversary unless they take hostile action against them.
“We don’t have anything written down — nothing we’ve signed — that defines a common threat,” Fidan said. “Any country that does not attack us is not a target for us.”The Turkish minister described the agreement’s clause on mutual defense as being “technically the same” as NATO’s Article 5, under which an attack on one of the 32 members is considered an attack on them all.
