India’s external affairs minister S Jaishankar downplayed the significance of the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye, questioning its relevance amid the “live military situations” faced by the three signatories.
The three countries signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement on August 7, following talks between Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“There are live military situations which each of the signatories face, what has the Makkah pact done in response to that?” he said when asked about India’s reaction to the pact at an event in Delhi. However, Jaishankar said India would factor the agreement into its security calculus, stressing that developments involving countries that are “not well disposed” towards India is always taken into account. “In my calculus, everything counts, everything will have a weight…and sometimes things need to play out,” he said. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said (mention when) India is assessing the implications of the agreement from the perspective of both national security and regional peace and stability. “As far as this agreement is concerned, we are examining its implications both from the perspective of India’s national security and considerations of regional peace and stability,” External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at his bi-weekly media briefing.
A joint statement issued by the three countries on Friday said the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement is based on their shared strategic interests and longstanding defence cooperation.
