Türkiye, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have agreed to establish a secretariat in Saudi Arabia to oversee work under the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement.
The body will initially be headed by a secretary-general from Pakistan for a three-year term, according to a joint statement issued after the pact’s first Strategic Political and Defense Committee meeting in Istanbul on Aug. 31.
The meeting brought together the foreign and defense ministers and military chiefs of the three countries.
“We formally adopted the first institutional decisions of the Mecca Defense Alliance,” Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said following the talks.
The three countries agreed to take further steps to institutionalize their cooperation, strengthen collective deterrence and support efforts to ease tensions and resolve regional crises peacefully, the statement said.
They will also seek to improve their defense capabilities and military interoperability through defense industry cooperation, joint technology development and joint production.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed the agreement in Mecca on Aug. 7.
The pact stipulates that an armed attack against one of the three countries will be regarded as an attack against all.
