Makkah pact a game changer, other regions will copy it: Turkish professor

ISLAMABAD: The joint defense agreement signed by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye in Makkah on Friday is a game changer that will deter those who want to change borders, Turkish professor Mehmet Ozkan said.

Ozkan, who teaches international relations at the Joint War Institute of the Turkish National Defense University in Istanbul, said the pact was the first arrangement of its kind in the Muslim world and that its effects would be felt well beyond the Middle East.

"That is a game-changing agreement, and we will see repercussions in coming years, firstly in the Middle East and probably overall in the Islamic world," Ozkan said while speaking at Pakistan TV Digital’s show South Speaks with Saqib.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement at Al Safa Palace.

According to a statement issued by Pakistan’s Foreign Office, an armed attack on any one of the three states will be treated as an attack on all three as per the defense agreement, a clause similar to Article 5 of the NATO treaty.

Ozkan said the deal mattered most for what it settled about who decides security in the region.

Regional countries now want a front seat on security and economic questions, he said, instead of "looking up to the West for the developments in their own region."

He said the three signatories covered each other's gaps. Turkiye brings its defence industry, Pakistan brings its nuclear capability, and Saudi Arabia brings financial weight.

"Eventually these three countries will support each other where they are lacking, and that is why they are complementing each other," he said.

The professor expects the group to grow. He also expects the model itself to travel, saying similar arrangements could follow in Latin America or Africa at a time he described as a very uncertain global political era.

Asked how Turkiye views this agreement vis-a-vis NATO, Ozkan said, "This pact does not impact Turkiye's relations with NATO or the West.

"Turkiye's relation with NATO will be there as long as NATO exists."

Ankara treats such cooperation as complementary rather than a rivalry, he said, and both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan keep close security ties with Europe and the United States.

"I see this as an expansion of a NATO-like security umbrella in global politics, in a different form," he said.