Türkiye's parliament has ratified the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, a trilateral security pact with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia that treats an armed attack on any one of the three countries as an attack on all three, clearing the way for the agreement to enter into force.
Lawmakers approved the ratification bill on Thursday by 279 votes to 119, with 398 of the chamber's 592 members taking part in the ballot, after a lengthy debate in which opposition parties warned the pact could draw Türkiye into regional wars and put Turkish soldiers in harm's way.
The agreement, which runs to 16 articles, was signed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif at a trilateral summit in the Saudi holy city of Makkah on 7 August. It commits the three states to regard an attack against one as an attack on all, to work together to deter threats, deepen military cooperation, share intelligence and strengthen defence industry ties.
Ankara sent the pact to parliament for ratification last month, submitting it on 20 October. The first article of the approving bill was adopted on Wednesday, after which the deputy speaker adjourned the session until Thursday afternoon, when the final vote was held.
The pact binds its members for ten years. After that period, a signatory that wishes to leave must give three months' notice. The agreement takes effect once it is published in Türkiye's Official Gazette, with implementation assigned to the president.
Ratification does not by itself send Turkish troops anywhere. A ruling party lawmaker told Reuters last month that Türkiye would also seek separate parliamentary approval for a mandate allowing the deployment of Turkish military personnel to Saudi Arabia under the pact, and reports on the vote stressed that any troop deployment would need that further step.
The vote comes as Riyadh continues to face attacks by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels, including recent missile strikes aimed at Makkah and Madinah that Pakistan publicly condemned. At an emergency meeting of the alliance in Riyadh last month, the three countries agreed to ensure the rapid deployment of military forces and capabilities in Saudi Arabia in the face of the Houthi attacks.
Supporters of the pact in parliament argued that it would expand regional security cooperation and strengthen collective deterrence at a moment of escalating confrontation across the region. Justice and Development Party lawmaker Ziya Altunyaldiz told the chamber during the debate that the agreement was intended to broaden security cooperation between the three countries.
Opposition lawmakers countered that the collective defence clause could embroil Türkiye in conflicts that are not its own, and questioned whether Ankara would be drawn into the fighting in Yemen or into a wider confrontation involving Iran. The government has not said when, or whether, it will seek the separate deployment mandate.
The ratification adds a formal treaty framework to a relationship that has already been deepening. On Wednesday, the Saudi and Syrian defence ministries signed a separate military cooperation agreement, underlining how quickly defence alignments are shifting across the region as the Houthi campaign against Saudi targets continues.
Attention now turns to the Official Gazette and to whether Ankara moves to seek the troop deployment mandate, which would be the next concrete test of how far the three allies intend to take the pact. For now, the agreement stands as the clearest statement yet that an attack on Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or Türkiye will be treated by all three as an attack on themselves.
