Turkey urges Egypt to join its defence pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan

Turkey has urged Egypt to join a defence agreement it signed in Mecca last week with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

Although details still need to be fleshed out, its central feature stipulates that an attack on any of the three states will be treated as an attack on all.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he hopes more countries would join the deal aimed at stabilising a region wracked by conflict.

Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, said the alliance was not against anyone.

"It merely underlines our commitment to one another’s security, sovereignty, and prosperity, while enhancing regional ownership,” he said.

While Egypt has robust military cooperation with Ankara, its foreign minister says Cairo must first conduct an in-depth study of the defence pact's "legal and constitutional considerations".

"When it comes to cooperation in defence fields, there are legal obligations in this regard,” said Egyptian foreign minister Badr Abdelatty.

The signing of the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement comes as the Middle East grapples with fallout from the US-Iran war.

It has dragged in regional players and disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea.

The five-month conflict has upended the security architecture in the region and forced a rethink of decades of conventional wisdom rooted in US military supremacy.

Since the onset of the war, Saudi Arabia has grown closer to Turkey, with whom it previously had fraught ties.