Turkey and Qatar signed a joint defence agreement on Friday, according to the office of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after his meeting with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in Istanbul, as reported by Reuters.
The Turkish presidency said in a statement on X that Erdogan stressed the two countries could “continue working together to prevent a return of war in the Gulf region, and lay the foundation for dialogue and peace”.
The statement gave no details of the agreement’s terms or how it will be implemented.
The announcement comes about a week after the Turkish parliament ratified the “Mecca Agreement” for joint defence between Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, signed by the three countries in Mecca on 7 August, under which an attack on one party is considered an attack on all.
Ankara and Doha have had close military ties for years, including a Turkish military presence in Qatar, and the new agreement reflects a growing trend in the region towards regional security arrangements amid tensions in the Gulf.
Source: Reuters, BBC Arabic
