Turkiye and Qatar signed a mutual defence agreement on Friday after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met the Qatari Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, in Istanbul, Erdogan’s office said. In a statement on X, the presidency said the two countries would continue working together to prevent the resurgence of war in the Gulf region and to establish a basis for dialogue and peace, that their defence industry cooperation would continue to grow, and that the agreement would add another dimension to their brotherhood, but it provided no details of the accord.
The signing follows the Makkah Joint Defense Agreement that Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed in August, which Turkiye’s parliament ratified last week and which treats an attack on one party as an attack on all. No such clause has been stated for the Turkiye and Qatar agreement, and what obligations it creates will not be clear until its text or further official statements appear.