No to Türkiye’s deployment of troops to Saudi Arabia and the US war against Iran!

6 October 2026facebook iconThe announcement that Türkiye and nuclear-armed Pakistan will deploy troops to Saudi Arabia at Riyadh’s request is a reactionary move targeting Iran, which is under imperialist attack, and its allies, including the Houthi Ansar Allah movement in Yemen. The Ansar Allah movement, besides fighting a US-backed, Saudi-led Arab coalition, opposes Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the US-Israeli war against Iran. The announcement follows French imperialism’s offer to send troops to defend the Saudi regime.

The Sosyalist Eşitlik Partisi–Dördüncü Enternasyonal (Socialist Equality Party–Fourth International), the Turkish section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, calls on workers and youth in Türkiye and internationally to oppose US imperialism’s aggression, which aims at the full domination of the Middle East, and the Mecca Agreement, which operates in collaboration with it.

The foreign and defense ministers of Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan met in Riyadh on Monday, October 5, at an extraordinary meeting of the “Strategic Political and Defense Committee of the Makkah Alliance for Defense.” The joint statement issued after the summit announced that the committee had decided to proceed immediately to the practical implementation of the collective defense commitments and to the “rapid deployment” of the agreed military forces and capabilities in the Saudi kingdom. Without naming the Houthis, the joint statement condemned “the attempted targeting of Makkah and Madinah.” These allegations, which have been raised for some time, had been rejected by the Ansar Allah movement.

It was thus declared that the agreement signed in Mecca on August 7 would be put into effect for the first time. The agreement, whose full text has still not been made public, takes NATO’s Article 5 as its model and declares that an armed attack against any one of the three states shall be regarded as an attack against all three. Monday’s statement contained no information on the size and composition of the forces to be sent to Saudi Arabia, the weapons systems to be deployed or the timetable for the deployment. Under the Constitution of the Republic of Türkiye, the Mecca Agreement must first be ratified by parliament.

This decision is part of the escalation of the imperialist war in the Middle East. The preparations by Ankara and Islamabad to send troops to Saudi Arabia, as Washington and Tel Aviv carry out a military buildup for a new escalation of their war against Iran, are a reactionary, pro-imperialist and pro-Zionist step. In March, these same three countries signed the Riyadh statement, which condemned not the US war of aggression against Iran but Iran’s retaliatory strikes carried out in legitimate self-defense.

Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman’s statement that the alliance would activate its collective deterrence measures “in response to the attacks and all those responsible for them” makes clear that the target is not only the Houthi forces but their main ally, Iran.

The drawing of Türkiye, which has NATO’s second-largest army, and Pakistan into this war—both share a land border with Iran—opens the door to a conflict that could engulf the entire region. As the World Socialist Web Site warned when the agreement was signed, this pact offers no protection to the working class of the signatory countries. On the contrary, it means chaining them to a series of conflicts stretching from the Eastern Mediterranean to South Asia and driving them into war.

The Riyadh meeting took place as the war of aggression launched by the United States and Israel against Iran on February 28 was being prepared for a new stage. Saudi Arabia had opened its bases to the US offensive on Iran and had been one of the targets of Iran’s retaliation in legitimate self-defense.

The US Navy has blockaded Iran’s ports since July, and the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Trump, who rejected Tehran’s latest proposals, told Time magazine that a resumption of bombing after the November 3 midterm elections was “possible.” The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and an amphibious group carrying about 2,000 Marines are heading to the region, which could thus have three aircraft carrier strike groups at the same time. Trump threatened Iran, saying, “They’ll either sign a very fair deal, or they won’t exist any longer.”

In the same period, the war between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis flared up again. After Riyadh struck Sanaa airport in July, the Houthis targeted Saudi territory for the first time since 2022. In mid-September, the Houthis seized the port city of Mokha and areas around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, choking off the second-largest oil transit route after Hormuz. Since then, the Houthis have announced attacks on Aramco facilities in Riyadh, Yanbu and Rabigh.

On October 4, Rashad al-Alimi, the head of Yemen’s Saudi-backed Presidential Leadership Council, announced the launching of a comprehensive offensive to retake all Houthi-held territory. The following day, as the parties to the Mecca Agreement gathered in Riyadh, government forces claimed to have retaken Mokha and positions near Bab el-Mandeb, while the Saudi-led coalition announced that 100 warplanes were providing air support. The Houthis deny that Mokha has fallen. This is the background against which the Mecca Agreement is being put into effect.

The joint statement specified that the deployment would be carried out “in accordance with the national legislation of the parties.” This proviso concerns Türkiye in particular. Under Article 90 of the Constitution, an international treaty of this kind must be ratified by the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye (TBMM). According to a report in Oksijen, the agreement is expected to come before parliament for a vote this week.

How does the Mecca Agreement's 'collective defense' clause compare to NATO's Article 5, and what does that tell us about how these military pacts function to draw smaller states into imperialist wars?What is the historical relationship between Erdoğan's government and US/NATO military strategy in the Middle East that explains why Türkiye would agree to send troops to defend Saudi Arabia?Ask more questions at SocialismAI.comWhatever was decided in Riyadh, the Mecca Agreement is not formally in force as far as Türkiye is concerned. Moreover, Article 92 of the Constitution also makes the sending of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) abroad subject to parliamentary authorization.

Popular opposition in Türkiye to US aggression in the Middle East and its war against Iran is overwhelming. According to a survey published by the Areda Survey in March 2026, 93.2 percent of participants opposed a US and Israeli attack on Iran. These same millions view the Houthis with sympathy because of their opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the imperialist assault on Iran. There is no sympathy whatsoever for the Saudi regime, which brutally murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi in its Istanbul consulate, carries out savage repression at home and slaughters the impoverished people of Yemen with bombs and starvation.

This is why the Saudi regime and the pro-government media seize on unverified claims that Houthi retaliatory strikes targeted Mecca and Medina, cities holy to Muslims. The Houthis categorically reject these claims, stating that their attacks target military installations and oil infrastructure, and accuse Riyadh of resorting to the “holy sites under attack” narrative to legitimize military intervention and the naval blockade.

The rejection of the Mecca Agreement and the deployment of troops to Saudi Arabia is an integral part of the struggle against the US imperialist war of aggression in the Middle East and the genocide in Gaza. This requires establishing the independence of the working class from the entire pro-imperialist political establishment, including the Erdoğan regime, and mobilizing it in the struggle for a United Socialist Federation of the Middle East.

The Sosyalist Eşitlik Partisi calls on workers and youth in Türkiye to demand the annulment of the Mecca Agreement and of the decision to deploy troops to Saudi Arabia, the closure of the İncirlik and Kürecik bases, which are used for the benefit of the US and Israel, a halt to oil shipments to Israel that pass through Türkiye, and an end to Türkiye’s integration into the US-led imperialist war machine.