The Makkah Joint Defence Agreement among Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye bars withdrawal for a decade after it takes effect, making final ratification the trigger for any exit timetable.
Leaders announced the mutual-defense principle when they signed in Makkah on Aug. 7; the treaty text later set out the process for entry into force and withdrawal. Article 16 says the 10-year count begins when the secretariat of the Strategic Political and Defence Committee receives the final instrument of ratification. The pact has no stated end date. A party becomes eligible to leave only after a decade has passed from entry into force, and it must send its partners diplomatic notice in writing at least three months in advance.
Türkiye submitted the agreement to parliament for ratification on Oct. 20, TRT Haber reported. The submission places the agreement before lawmakers, but it does not by itself start the withdrawal period.
Article 2 treats an armed attack on one member by an outside party as an attack on all three and requires immediate assistance. The treaty leaves the form and scale of aid to the governments’ assessment of the affected country’s needs and what its partners can provide, including military capabilities. It does not prescribe one identical response for every attack.
At an emergency meeting in Riyadh on Oct. 5, the governments said they would prepare for agreed forces and capabilities to move quickly into Saudi Arabia, subject to domestic law. Their joint statement named neither a force level nor a deployment date. The committee also appointed retired Pakistani Lt. Gen. Nauman Mahmood as its first secretary-general for a three-year term.
Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar has called the agreement “purely defensive in nature” and said it targets no country. The final instrument’s deposit with the committee secretariat is the formal step that begins the 10-year withdrawal period.
