ANKARA (Dispatches) -- Turkey submitted the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement to parliament for ratification on Tuesday, a move analysts warn could draw Ankara deeper into Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen and escalate regional tensions, despite official claims the pact is defensive in nature.
The agreement, signed by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in August, obligates signatories to treat an armed attack on one member as an attack on all, modelled on NATO’s Article 5. 
Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmus is expected to refer the text to the foreign affairs committee after returning from Kyrgyzstan, with deliberations potentially beginning Friday.
Analysts critical of the pact argue it risks entangling Turkey in a conflict it cannot control. The timing is significant: the submission comes amid a sharp escalation between Saudi Arabia and Yemen which has resumed missile and drone strikes on Saudi territory.
A Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Ankara’s contribution would be limited to military equipment, intelligence sharing and weapons systems, with no other deployments under the coalition so far. 
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has insisted the agreement “is not an offensive agreement” and that Turkey “will not send troops to another country to carry out attacks on its territory”.
But critics contend the distinction between defensive and offensive support is untenable in practice. Aydın Sezer, an international relations analyst, said that “with the Mecca Agreement, Turkey has effectively positioned itself in the Persian Gulf in opposition to Iran,” despite repeated Turkish assertions that the pact is not directed against Tehran. 
Regional politics expert Jalal Cheraghi said the agreement suffers from “strategic contradictions,” noting that Saudi Arabia’s adversaries often overlap with Pakistan’s and Turkey’s partners, making credible collective defense difficult. 
He suggested Riyadh’s primary motive may be to pull Ankara and Islamabad away from Tehran rather than to create a functioning military alliance.
The Yemen dimension is central to the criticism. Pakistan has reportedly deployed roughly 8,000 troops, 16 JF-17 fighter jets, two drone squadrons and a Chinese-made HQ-9 air-defense system to Saudi Arabia, with the total potentially rising to 80,000 if Riyadh invokes the full scope of the agreement. 
Pakistani forces have been accused of participating in strikes against Yemen, though Islamabad denies involvement in offensive operations. Turkish support is expected to be more limited—air defense, electronic warfare and technical assistance—but analysts say even this constitutes material backing for Saudi operations that have killed civilians in Yemen.
Regional security experts also question the pact’s durability. Former Pakistani border corps commander Tariq Khan said any regional security framework excluding Iran—a major military power—would be “merely symbolic and theatrical”. 
The agreement’s text remains unpublished, and its practical implementation mechanisms are unclear, raising doubts about whether it will function as a credible deterrent or simply escalate an already volatile conflict.