Dhaka: Bangladesh has spent many years staying exterior navy blocs. On Monday, it indicated that it is likely to be able to abandon that restraint.
State minister for international affairs Humaiun Kobir stated Dhaka was contemplating becoming a member of the Mecca Pact, a brand new collective-defence settlement linking Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan.
His remarks instantly introduced Bangladesh with a consequential alternative on whether or not the safety and diplomatic advantages of becoming a member of three influential Muslim-majority international locations would outweigh the dangers of alarming India and changing into entangled in conflicts far past South Asia.
“If there’s a safety association amongst Islamic nations within the Center East, it isn’t uncommon for us to think about taking part,” Kobir advised reporters. “It’s being seen positively.”
Kobir stated the pact’s members had invited Bangladesh’s management, significantly Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, to take part. He additionally invoked Mecca’s non secular significance to Bangladesh, the place greater than 90 per cent of the inhabitants is Muslim, and stated becoming a member of a grouping of like-minded international locations wouldn’t be unnatural.
No choice has been made, and the phrases underneath which Bangladesh may enter stay unclear. However Kobir’s assertion was the primary public indication that Dhaka was significantly inspecting membership in a collective-defence association — a possible break with its longstanding coverage of avoiding navy alliances whereas sustaining relations with competing powers.
The Mecca Joint Defence Settlement was signed on August 7 by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. Its central dedication resembles Nato’s collective-defence precept: An armed assault towards one member could be handled as an assault towards all.
The settlement emerged amid an increasing Central Asia battle and rising uncertainty in regards to the sturdiness of American safety ensures. Its signatories insist that it’s defensive and directed towards no particular nation.
Pakistan has stated the settlement is in keeping with Article 51 of the United Nations Constitution, which recognises the appropriate to particular person and collective self-defence.
For now, the pact stays extra of a strategic pledge than an built-in navy alliance. It has not publicly introduced Nato-style command, everlasting headquarters
or widespread navy price range. Nor has it specified what every member could be required to contribute if one other have been attacked.
The promise of mutual defence is specific; the equipment for fulfilling it isn’t. Its founding members nonetheless provide complementary strengths. Saudi Arabia brings monetary energy, vitality affect and political weight within the Arab world. Turkey possesses Nato’s second-largest navy and a quickly increasing defence business. Pakistan contributes a big, skilled armed drive and stays the one Muslim-majority nation with nuclear weapons.
Erdogan has stated the settlement mustn’t stay restricted to the three founding international locations and will ultimately develop throughout the area. Bangladesh, with a inhabitants of roughly 170 million, a considerable navy and a protracted file of participation in United Nations peacekeeping operations, could be a big addition.
Membership might give Dhaka larger entry to Turkish defence expertise, Pakistani navy coaching and Saudi financing. It might additionally deepen Bangladesh’s place within the Muslim world and strengthen relations with the Gulf, the place thousands and thousands of Bangladeshis work and from the place the nation receives a big share of its remittance earnings.
However the potential advantages include obligations that stay undefined. A collective- defence pledge might draw Bangladesh right into a warfare even when its personal territory confronted no direct menace. Dhaka may additionally be pressured to take positions in conflicts involving Iran, Israel, the Gulf states or the US — relationships it has historically managed individually.
Humayun Kabir, a former Bangladeshi ambassador to the US and a profession diplomat, stated the proposal required in depth scrutiny.
“As I perceive, the state minister stated that Bangladesh was open to the concept, however I assume this wants critical deliberations — and a collection of them,” he advised The Telegraph.
Kabir recognized three central considerations. “It goes towards Bangladesh’s longstanding coverage of not aligning with any navy bloc,” he stated. “Second, the geographic difficulty is one other matter for consideration. And lastly, we’ve to consider the reactions from our key companions.”
Geography presents an instantaneous sensible downside. Bangladesh is separated from the pact’s Central Asia centre by India and the Arabian Sea. Its navy is organised primarily for territorial defence, maritime safety, catastrophe response and peacekeeping — not expeditionary operations in West Asia.
With out readability on deployment, logistics and command obligations, membership might quantity both to a symbolic declaration or to an open-ended promise whose prices Bangladesh can’t calculate.
Probably the most quick exterior response would come from India.
New Delhi has stated it’s “carefully following” the pact and assessing its implications for Indian safety and regional stability. Its concern is centred on Pakistan, India’s principal navy adversary, and on the chance that Islamabad might achieve further monetary, technological and diplomatic backing from Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Bangladesh’s membership would carry specific significance as a result of it could prolong the pact’s political attain to India’s jap frontier. “India isn’t probably to take a look at any such choice positively,” Kabir stated.
Bangladesh may be capable to clarify its place, he added, however New Delhi might nonetheless “learn it as a strategic shift in our priorities”.
The chance has surfaced at a delicate level in Bangladesh-India relations.
Ties have been strained by India’s choice to shelter former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Dhaka’s demand for her extradition and disputes over alleged forcible push-ins throughout the border. Rahman’s proposed go to to India has additionally been positioned on maintain, with Bangladeshi officers saying the correct diplomatic setting has but to be created.
Since Hasina’s fall in August 2024, Bangladesh has normalised relations with Pakistan after years of hostility rooted within the 1971 Liberation Struggle. Direct commerce and diplomatic contacts have expanded, senior navy officers have exchanged visits, and the 2 international locations have mentioned wider defence cooperation, together with the doable buy of Pakistani JF-17 fighter plane.
Dhaka has concurrently accelerated navy ties with Turkey. Ankara has emerged as an more and more vital provider of defence tools, providing drones, armoured automobiles, artillery and different techniques with out most of the political circumstances related to Western suppliers.
These developments have brought on unease in India, the place Bangladesh’s nearer defence engagement with Pakistan and Turkey is usually seen not merely as diversification however because the emergence of another strategic community round India.
Sreeradha Datta, a professor at OP Jindal International College, stated becoming a member of the pact would make an already troublesome relationship extra sophisticated. “It might not be seen favourably by India,” she stated. “It might appear Bangladesh isn’t factoring in India’s safety sensitivity. It might actually complicate ties which are removed from regular.”
Datta additionally questioned whether or not the pact provided Bangladesh enough strategic advantages to justify such a departure. “If in any respect, this transfer would repudiate all that Bangladesh has stood for previously,” she stated. “It appears a fairly drastic transfer, and I’m not very satisfied in regards to the strategic beneficial properties.”
