Arıkan criticized the Mecca Agreement: it is ‘division,’ not ‘solidarity,’ he said. Mahmut Arıkan, chairman of the Saadet Partisi, made statements on current issues at the Yeni Yol Partisi group meeting, saying that the agreement means division, not solidarity.
The agreement was signed on August 7. Arıkan criticized the 16-article Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, signed on August 7 and submitted to the TBMM Presidency, to which Pakistan is also a party alongside Turkey and Saudi Arabia. He regarded the text not as cooperation but as an obligation. Recalling that the second article considers an attack on one party as an attack on all parties, Arıkan said that risking one Muslim country for the security of another is division, not solidarity. Questioning whether TBMM authorization is required for deployments and the legal basis of the October 5 Riyadh decision, Arıkan said the agreement generates concern, not hope. He also asked about the decision-making mechanism in times of crisis.
Arıkan offered his condolences. Praying for mercy for those who lost their lives in the flood in Istanbul, Arıkan emphasized that the real cause of the disaster was construction in stream beds and concrete density.
He also voiced criticism over the fund crisis. Arıkan noted that in the bill concerning the fund crisis, interim payments of up to one million lira are not guaranteed and do not include an inflation adjustment. He rejected broad powers for the SPK, Turkey’s capital markets regulator. Criticizing the granting of broad powers to the SPK by saying “those who are the source of the problem cannot solve the problem,” Arıkan said that “Fund Terrorist Organization” should be written at the top of the list.
Why it matters
The Mecca Mutual Defense Agreement places Turkey under a mutual defense obligation with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan; under the second article, an attack on either of these two countries being deemed an attack on Turkey creates the possibility of the country becoming a party to a crisis in which it is not directly targeted. That is why the real debate is over who will hold the decision once the obligation is triggered: whether deployments require the approval of the TBMM and the legal basis of the October 5 Riyadh decision remain unanswered. The uncertainty surrounding the decision-making mechanism that would operate in a crisis also leaves open how the agreement will be overseen in practice. The exclusion of interim payments from the guarantee and the absence of an inflation adjustment in the fund regulation mean that the amount reaching savers waiting for their money could erode over time. Attributing the losses in the flood to construction in stream beds reopens the debate over zoning responsibility that comes to the fore after every heavy rainfall.
Background
Arıkan is not a new name in the FikirPilot archive: we have published 6 news stories featuring this name in the last 90 days; the most recent is dated October 7, 2026.