On August 7, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey signed a defense pact that echoed Article 5 of NATO: an attack on one will be attack on all. The Mecca Joint Defense Agreement , for its vernacular, has sent shockwaves across the region and beyond, as all three signatories have long-festering feuds with their neighbors.
Saudi Arabia is locked in a years-long war with neighboring Yemen since 2015 , and recently with Iraq. Will Yemenis and Iraqis now think they have to face three adversaries, instead of one? Turkey, for its part, has unresolved tensions with neighboring Greece and Cyprus. Will Greeks and Cypriots think their adversaries have tripled? Pakistan and India have sibling rivalries that date back to their birth as independent nations. Will India now have to think thrice before taking on Pakistan?
Soon after the pact was inked, its signers played down its widely speculated targets, especially Iran and Israel . President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey tried to calm concerns by declaring that the accord was not aimed at any one country. To show that he means what he says, he invited all regional countries to join the alliance.
The next day, the Turkish minister for foreign affairs echoed his boss by saying that “ the accord is not targeting Iran .” He did, however, assert that the Mecca accord carried the weight of Article 5 of NATO. He announced that a NATO-like committee of ministers and a general secretariat would be established in Riyadh, and the alliance would operate like NATO. More importantly, he described the accord as “ a general pledge to support the three allies’ security ,” which would “ decide … what degree, form, and format of support they would ask for in the event of an attack .”
The accord’s appearance seems more alarming than its substance. Turkish President Erdogan, however, narrowed its scope to defense production , of which Turkey is the preeminent regional leader, and stemming the tide of militant violence that stalks the region. Turkey, whose maritime trade consists of energy imports, and exports of petrochemical, fertilizer and food products, is willing to engage the Houthi rebels, who often disrupt commercial shipping in the Red Sea, to secure freedom of navigation. Not only do Turkey’s interests across the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz converge with Saudi Arabia, but also with those of Israel and the United States. So, framing the Mecca accord in conventional geopolitical rivalries, or calling it the Muslim Nato will be simplistic at best.
All three countries in the new-born alliance agree that the accord is “defensive in nature,” “not aimed at any specific country,” and that “other states could join.” It is therefore no coincidence that Israel’s and U.S. official response to the accord was “no response.” Iran’s reaction was no less nonchalant and could be summed up in three words: we don’t care.
Even when it comes to the region’s waterways, each member of the alliance has concerns that vary in degree, kind, and emphasis. Saudi Arabia, for instance, is most concerned about maritime safety across the Red Sea. Since the Iran war, the bulk of its energy exports has been diverted to this passageway. Turkey is also more concerned with the Red Sea while Pakistan focuses on the strait of Hormuz and less so on the Red Sea. Much of Pakistan’s energy imports transit through the strait. Pakistan’s or Turkey’s cargoes, thus far, have been passing without interruption through both waterways. Iran has been eager to accommodate both nations to help speed their energy imports through the strait. In the Red Sea, the Houthis, too, have been waving through both nations’ trade goods. The challenge, however, has been for Saudi Arabia, whose exports are blocked from transiting through both the strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea.
Prior to the Mecca accord, Saudi Arabia assembled an international coalition of 14 nations to protect shipping in the Red Sea. Pakistan and Turkey, among others, are members of this coalition. The accord is the sharper end of the coalition, which has nothing to do with the ongoing regional conflict. It has been in the making for years since Riyadh’s relations with Yemen have nosedived and the Houthis have multiplied threats to freedom of navigation in the Red Sea through the strait of Bab-al-Mandeb, which appropriately means “gates of sorrow” in Arabic. The Houthis’ favorable targets in the Red Sea have, thus far, been American, Israeli, and Saudi vessels.
The 14-member international coalition and the Mecca accord purport to protect freedom of navigation for all nations. There are speculations that the accord is meant to replace the existing U.S. security architecture in the Middle East. If anything, it reinforces regional security cooperation . All three signatories have close diplomatic and strategic relations with the United States. Saudi Arabia is so close to Washington that the latter is bolstering its air defenses with F-35 fighter jets , one of the world’s most advanced weapon platforms. Turkey is a leading member nation of NATO which has the largest military in Europe. Ankara has actively participated in NATO-led military campaigns in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Turkey is also in line to receive F-35s . Pakistan has continued to be a “major non-NATO ally ” of the United States since 2004, and its civil and military leadership has never been closer to Washington. President Trump repeatedly refers to Pakistan’s Chief of Defense Forces Field Marshal Asim Munir as an “exceptional man,” a “great fighter” and “my favorite field marshal.”
More importantly, the “respective foes” of the new Mecca pact—Cyprus, Greece, India, Yemen—are not their “mutual foes.” Pakistan and Turkey are not nearly as hostile to Yemen or its mutually loathing factions as Saudi Arabia. Similarly, Saudi Arabia has defense and energy relations with Greece and Cyprus. Bound in a bilateral defense agreement, Athens has deployed the Greek Patriot air defense battery in a Red Sea Post city in Western Saudi Arabia since 2021. As for Turkey and India, fellow members of G-20, their trade volume of $10.4 billion is higher than what is between Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Trade between Saudi Arabia and India is even higher: $43 billion . Moreover, Saudi Arabia is now making a record investment in India of $100 billion , which exceeds that of the four-nation European Free Trade Association . Above all, Riyadh hosts 2.5 million Indian expatriate workers who sustain a steady stream of foreign exchange earnings for their native country. The Mecca accord is not about to upend these long-lived relations. Nor does the talk of a counter alliance of Afghanistan, Cyprus, Greece, India, Iran, Israel, and the UAE rise above a fantasy for the same reasons.
The accord’s only (mistaken) rationale seems to subdue the Houthis in Yemen with military hardware. If military campaigns could tame the Houthis, 11 years of war fought with the most advanced weaponry would have done the job. Instead, the war has now crossed into Saudi coastal towns and installations , while the strait of Bab-al-Mandeb remains closed to Saudi exports.
Yemen, with an 80 percent poverty rate , has nothing to lose. Its suffering has not softened the hearts of the world, or the world of Islam. Historically, the festering, 50-year conflict in Yemen is the product of the “original sin” of forcibly replacing its socialist government in the late 1970s with subservient religious fanatics. It is about time that Yemen’s neighbors and the world helped stop the proxy warfare, brokered peace between northern and southern Yemen, formed a unity government even if it is led by southern socialists or northern nationalists, and above all funded the reconstruction of ravaged Yemen with an initial investment of $50 billion. With these measures, war can be hoped to end, and shipping lanes across the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea hum with the world’s imports and exports.
Unfortunately, the Mecca accord does none of these things.
The post The Mecca Defense Accord: A Muslim NATO? appeared first on Foreign Policy In Focus .
The Mecca Defense Accord: A Muslim NATO?
Aggregated summary from an independent source. Read the original at FPIP.