Hyderabad, Oct. 21 -- Turkey has sent the Mecca Defence Pact, a mutual defence treaty it signed with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in August, to its parliament for ratification. The 16-article text, which Middle East Eye said it obtained exclusively, commits the three countries to treat an armed attack from outside on any one of them as an attack on all.

The wording is close to Article 5 of NATO's founding treaty.

The agreement does not name any country or region as a threat. It has no expiry date, and a member can pull out only after the pact has been in force for 10 years, and then only with three months' written notice.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sha...