President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he hopes more countries will join the defence agreement signed last week by Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan (Geo News).
“Our vision for it is not limited to the three countries,” he told the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat. “Rather we aspire for it to grow, and perhaps appropriate conditions will emerge one day for all countries of the region to gather under its umbrella.”
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Saturday that Turkiye expected Egypt to join “in the next stage”, with only “a few technical issues” in the way. Egypt has not commented — neither on the agreement nor on Fidan’s remarks. Cairo has substantial military cooperation with Ankara but has given no indication it intends to sign up to an alliance containing a NATO-style clause treating an attack on one as an attack on all. Fidan visits Cairo on Thursday and Friday.
That silence is the most informative thing about the expansion talk so far. The prospective fourth member is being discussed publicly by two of the three signatories and has declined to say anything at all.
Erdogan framed the pact as a product of changed circumstances, with regional states taking on more responsibility for their own security. “Regional issues should be resolved by regional actors, and with this action, we consider that we have taken a first step toward achieving that goal,” he said. “Resolving regional issues must be carried out away from formulas imposed from the outside. We know very well that solutions imported from abroad only bring disasters.”
He said the agreement seeks to boost security cooperation while opening the way to “developing joint projects in the defence industries”.
The five-month US-Iran war has unsettled a regional security architecture built on assumptions of American military primacy, and the pact consolidates three major US allies into an alternative arrangement. Saudi Arabia has moved closer to Turkiye despite previously fraught relations, with Erdogan saying Ankara and Riyadh would “take steps that will elevate relations between the two countries to much higher levels” without elaborating.
Iran’s foreign ministry has said it sees no reason to believe the pact is aimed at Tehran, describing it instead as evidence that regional states no longer regard the United States as a reliable guarantor.
The full text of the agreement has still not been published.
