Turkey just offered to examine Saudi Arabia's military needs
19 September 2026 · 19 September 2026Share
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan meets with UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron at the Vahdettin Palace in Istanbul. File photo. UK Government · CC BY 2.0
Turkey just said Saudi Arabia might need military help.
And that it'll actually look into it.
Hakan Fidan, Turkey's Foreign Minister, said it a few hours ago on Turkish TV, on NTV.
He said Saudi Arabia has military needs right now because of the Houthi attacks. And Turkey will examine them. Under the defence pact the two countries signed with Pakistan last month.
He said something else too.
He said Saudi Arabia never wanted this fight. So it's not fair that it's getting dragged into the war between America and Iran.
That's Turkey saying Saudi Arabia is a victim here. And saying it's ready to act on that.
Now here's why the timing matters.
Just hours before Fidan spoke, Houthi ballistic missiles hit near King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. They set an Aramco fuel depot on fire. Air raid alerts went out across Riyadh, Jeddah, Yanbu and Al-Kharj. This was reportedly the first time sirens have gone off in the Saudi capital since the Houthi escalation started in July. Saudi Arabia hasn't officially said anything about the strike itself.
So the country now offering to examine Saudi Arabia's military needs is speaking on the exact day missiles hit the Saudi capital for the first time.
Here's the pact Fidan means. It's called the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement. Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed it six weeks ago, on 7 August, in Mecca. Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince and Prime Minister, signed it. So did Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's President. So did Shehbaz Sharif, Pakistan's Prime Minister.
The pact says an attack on any one of the three counts as an attack on all three. Fidan has described that clause as being much the same as NATO's Article 5.
But here's the problem with that comparison.
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Riyadh skyline with modern development. File photo. B.alotaby · CC BY-SA 4.0
NATO's Article 5 comes with decades of joint planning. Shared command. Troops already in place. The Mecca pact has none of that on paper. Its text has never even been published. There's no disclosed detail on what any of the three countries actually has to do if one gets attacked.
And until today, neither Turkey nor Pakistan had done anything visible about it.
Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia kept getting worse through August and into September. They reached close to Mecca itself. Both countries stayed quiet the whole time. Officials cited by the Associated Press said neither Turkey nor Pakistan had even received a formal request for help under the pact.
So people started asking a real question. Is this pact an actual alliance? Or just words on paper?
Fidan's comments today are the first time either partner has spoken about acting on it.
But he chose his words carefully. He said Turkey "would look into" Saudi Arabia's needs. Not that Turkey has agreed to send anything. He didn't say what kind of help. Or when it might show up.
Turkey does have real muscle behind that promise, if it uses it. It runs NATO's second-largest military. It builds some of the most exported combat drones on Earth.
Pakistan is already there. Under a separate, earlier deal — the Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement, signed a year ago — Pakistan has had at least 8,000 troops in Saudi Arabia since April. Plus about 16 fighter jets, two drone squadrons and an air defence battery.
Fidan said one more thing. He said proposals have gone out to "all sides" to try to end the fighting. He didn't say who got them. Or what's in them.
So what is Turkey actually examining? Not known. What has Saudi Arabia formally asked for? Not known. Will Pakistan follow with its own statement? Not known. Has the United States even been told? Not known either.
For six weeks, the Mecca pact was just a promise on paper.
Today, for the first time, one of its members said out loud that it's actually looking at what keeping that promise would take.
Nothing here was paid for by an advertiser. Members are the entire business model. This story is Silver's: it opens everything we have ever written, and our investigations first.
