What if an attack on Ankara was treated as an attack on Cairo, Riyadh and Islamabad? That's exactly what Turkey is pitching.

So, here's a big one you might have missed.

Turkey is actively lobbying Egypt to join its brand-new defence pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, in a move that could completely redraw the Middle East's security map, as first reported by cbinews.tv.

The deal itself — formally called the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement — was signed in Mecca last week. And while the fine print is still being worked out, the headline clause is pure NATO-style Article 5: an attack on one is an attack on all three.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he wants the club to grow, calling it a way to stabilise a region that's frankly on edge right now.

Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was keen to stress it's not aimed at anyone.

"It merely underlines our commitment to one another’s security, sovereignty, and prosperity, while enhancing regional ownership,” he said.

Egypt, though, is playing it cool for now. Despite already having solid military cooperation with Ankara, Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said Cairo needs to do a proper legal deep-dive first.

"When it comes to cooperation in defence fields, there are legal obligations in this regard,” he said, pointing to "legal and constitutional considerations".

Why this matters — and why now?

For some context, this is a huge turnaround.

Just a few years ago, Turkey and Saudi Arabia could barely be in the same room after the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, and Turkey-Egypt relations completely collapsed after the 2013 ousting of Mohamed Morsi, with Erdogan calling it a coup. Ambassadors were only fully restored in 2023.

What's brought them together?

It's the fallout from the five-month US-Iran war.

That conflict, which has dragged in regional proxies and severely disrupted global shipping through both the Strait of Hormuz — through which 20% of the world's oil passes — and the Red Sea, has shattered decades of assumptions about US military dominance as the region's ultimate guarantor.

Saudi Arabia, in particular, has been hedging its bets and cosying up to Turkey since the war began.

And look at the numbers — this wouldn't be a small alliance. Combined, the four countries would have over 3 million active military personnel. Saudi Arabia is the world's fifth-biggest defence spender at over $75bn a year, Turkey has NATO's second-largest army, Egypt has the largest armed forces in the Arab world, and Pakistan is the only Muslim-majority nuclear power with an estimated 170 warheads.

If Egypt does sign on, you'd be looking at a Sunni-majority defence bloc stretching from the Mediterranean to the Arabian Sea, with serious manpower, money and, in Pakistan's case, nuclear capability.

Whether Cairo says yes will come down to that legal review — and a lot of careful geopolitics.

Credit: cbinews.tv

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