Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry has confirmed the presence of Pakistani military troops in Saudi Arabia.
In an interview given to the American media, DG ISPR said that the defense cooperation between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia spans several decades. In this regard, Pakistani military personnel have been deployed in Saudi Arabia for a long time.
According to Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the Pakistani military troops present in Saudi Arabia under the Mecca Defense Agreement belong to different sectors. He explained the presence of these troops in the context of the long-standing defense ties between the two countries.
This clarification comes at a time when the member countries of the Mecca Defense Alliance have agreed to take further practical steps to meet Saudi Arabia’s security needs.
According to a Foreign Office spokesperson, an emergency meeting of the Mecca Defense Alliance’s Strategic Political and Defense Committee was held in Riyadh. Representatives of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey attended the meeting.
During the meeting, the immediate progress on the commitments related to collective defense was reviewed. The participants also decided to immediately deploy the necessary military force and defense capabilities in Saudi Arabia.
The joint statement said that the security of the three countries is linked to the collective security of each other. According to the statement, translating the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement into practical measures is an important step towards making the mutual defense commitment more effective.
Defense cooperation between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia already exists at many levels. Training, consultation, and defense cooperation between the military institutions of the two countries have also been going on for a long time.
The latest developments make it clear that after the Mecca Defense Agreement, attention is being paid to giving a more systematic and practical form to the security cooperation between the two countries. Turkey’s involvement in this process is also considered important in the broader context of regional defense cooperation.
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