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Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan have signed a defence pact in Mecca under which an attack on any one of them counts as an attack on all three.

This comes as Syria and Russia agreed to wind down Moscow's two Mediterranean bases, and as Israel rejected the US roadmap for Gaza that Hamas has accepted.

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Major Story

🇸🇦🇹🇷🇵🇰 Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan sign defence pact

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan have signed a joint defence agreement in Mecca stating that any armed attack against one of the three states shall be regarded as an attack against them all.

The agreement was announced at a meeting between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and follows a Saudi-Pakistani pact announced last year.

It pledges to strengthen collective deterrence and enhance defence co-operation, but sets out no specifics on what each party is obliged to do, and a Turkish official told Reuters it was "purely defensive in nature".

It also comes after Tehran and its allies struck targets in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states following the US and Israeli attack on Iran on 28 February, and after Yemen's Houthis declared a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia last month.

Iran reacted sharply, with Ebrahim Rezaei of the National Security commission writing on X that "a paper agreement with Turkey and Pakistan does not bring them security, just as years of unilateral milking of the Americans did not bring them security".

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