Türkiye’s parliament has approved the ratification of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, the trilateral security pact between Türkiye, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, clearing the way for the agreement to take effect. Lawmakers endorsed the measure by 279 votes to 119 on Thursday, with 398 of the chamber’s 592 members taking part in the ballot. The bill, formally titled the Bill on the Approval of the Makkah Agreement on Joint Defence, passed after lengthy debate, with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling AK Party and its ally, the Nationalist Movement Party, backing it. The 16-article agreement was signed in the Saudi holy city of Makkah on 7 August 2026 by Erdoğan, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. Its core clause treats an armed attack on any one signatory as an attack on all three, obliging the others to provide immediate assistance, alongside commitments on intelligence sharing, military coordination and defence industry cooperation. The pact runs for 10 years, and no signatory may withdraw during that first decade. The ratification comes as Saudi Arabia faces attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels. At an emergency meeting in Riyadh last month, the three countries agreed to ensure the rapid deployment of military forces and capabilities to the Kingdom, and in September retired Lt Gen Mahmood was appointed the pact’s first secretary general. The agreement had been submitted to the Turkish parliament for ratification on 20 October. Opposition lawmakers warned during the debate that the pact could draw Turkish troops into regional wars. Ratification on its own does not authorise deployments: under Article 92 of the Turkish Constitution, sending Turkish forces abroad generally requires separate parliamentary authorisation.

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