ANKARA — Turkey’s parliament has ratified a joint defense agreement with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Under the pact, an armed attack from outside on any one of the three countries is treated as an attack on all of them.
The Grand National Assembly approved the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement on Thursday by 279 votes to 119. In all, 398 of the assembly’s 592 lawmakers took part in the vote. The first article of the ratification bill was adopted on Wednesday, and the remaining articles were debated and passed on Thursday.
The agreement was signed in Mecca on August 7, 2026, by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. It has 16 articles and covers collective defense, the sharing of intelligence and wider military cooperation between the three countries.
The ratification bill reached parliament in October, after the Foreign Affairs Committee approved it on October 27. Thursday’s vote in the full assembly was the final step in the legislature, and it was taken by electronic ballot.
The collective-defense clause does not by itself send Turkish troops abroad. Fuat Oktay, who chairs parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said during the debate that sending Turkish soldiers to another country would still require a separate decision by parliament. Any military help would be worked out in talks between the three governments and under each country’s own laws.
The vote followed a long debate about regional security and parliament’s oversight role. Opposition lawmakers raised the risk that Turkey could be drawn into the fighting around Yemen. Saudi Arabia, a member of the pact, faces renewed attacks by Yemen’s Houthi group. In the Foreign Affairs Committee last month, the governing AK Party, its MHP allies and the main opposition CHP voted for the bill, while three smaller parties voted against.
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have already completed their own ratification procedures, Pakistan’s Foreign Office announced on October 23. In Turkey, parliament’s approval completes the legislative step. Presidential ratification and publication in the Official Gazette — the government’s official record in which new laws are printed — are still to come before the agreement takes effect. Under the text submitted to parliament, members are committed for 10 years, after which a member may withdraw.
Once Turkey’s remaining steps are done, the agreement takes effect when the last of the three countries deposits its ratification document with the agreement’s secretariat in Saudi Arabia.
The three-country pact builds on a bilateral strategic mutual defense agreement that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed in September 2025.
Sources: Reuters; Anadolu Agency; Al Jazeera; Associated Press.
