The trilateral agreement entered its operational phase on October 5 following an escalation of Houthi missile and drone attacks on Saudi infrastructure. Turkey and Pakistan said they had started taking steps to support Saudi Arabia.
Under the arrangements discussed by the three countries, Pakistani and Turkish forces are expected to provide military, technical and intelligence support to Saudi Arabia, including defensive capabilities inside the kingdom. Officials said the forces would not participate in offensive operations in Yemen.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei, asked on Sunday about reports that tens of thousands of Pakistani troops could be deployed to Saudi Arabia, said: “We have also heard this rumor and we hope it is not true.”
“Countries in the region are well aware that any intervention in the Yemen issue could have undesirable consequences for the region,” he added, expressing hope that agreements such as the Mecca Accord would not be used “against the interests and well-being of the Muslim community.”
The defense agreement between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan, signed in August in Mecca, stipulates that an attack on one of the three countries will be treated as an attack on all three.
“Begging for security”
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, without directly referring to the agreement, called on neighboring countries to pursue “autonomy” and a policy based on “true brotherhood.” He also said such deals would not constrain Iran.
Several lawmakers rejected the deal, calling it largely symbolic. Ahmad Bakhshayesh, a member of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy, called it a “paper and political pact”.
Stronger criticism was made by commission member Ebrahim Rezaei.
“The Saudis should know that a paper deal with Turkey and Pakistan will not bring them security, just as years of unilateral dealing from the Americans have not brought them security,” he wrote on X. “Correct your politics so you don’t have to beg for security from others. »
This tone has hardened as the agreement enters its operational phase.
Alaeddin Boroujerdi, a member of the parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy, said on Thursday that the involvement of Turkey and Pakistan in the Saudi conflict with Ansarullah, as the Houthis are officially known, would not weaken the group or restrict its ability to operate in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.
“The entry of Pakistan and Turkey will certainly be to their own detriment,” he told ISNA. “They should learn from history…Saudi Arabia once had a coalition with a large number of countries, but after seven years of war in Yemen, it was defeated.”
‘Regional speaker’
Iranian criticism has focused more on Pakistan than Turkey, largely because of Islamabad’s leading role in mediating between Tehran and Washington.
Lawmaker Ahmad Naderi wrote on
The Tabnak news site went further, saying that Iran views the deployment of Pakistani forces in Saudi Arabia as a threat to its security and “will not tolerate Pakistan’s military presence for military operations in the war in Yemen.”
He also warned that Pakistan’s increasingly open alignment with Saudi Arabia could increase sectarian tensions in the country and lead to instability on the Iran-Pakistan border.
Conservative commentator Hassan Hanizadeh also accused Saudi Arabia of seeking to create a religious divide, describing a recent meeting in Riyadh involving Saudi, Pakistani and Turkish officials as a sign of “the formation of Shiite-Sunni polarization in the region.”
Boroujerdi highlighted possible domestic opposition in Pakistan, saying its people were “revolutionary, Muslim and very sensitive to these issues” and that Islamabad would not have an easy path if it went to war.
“Alliance against the oppressed?
Iranian state media adopted a more confrontational tone as the deal became operational, while giving extensive coverage to Houthi officials’ warnings to Turkey and Pakistan.
Tasnim described this development as “Turkey and Pakistan joining the Saudi war against the Yemeni people”, while Nour News, close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, asked: “Mecca alliance or alliance against the oppressed people of Yemen?!
In a commentary published Thursday, Tasnim warned that if Ankara and Islamabad participated in attacks on Yemen, “they could be directly affected by attacks on their ships, their interests and perhaps even their own territory.”
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