Bangladesh is engaged in “positive dialogue” on the possibility of joining the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, State Minister for Foreign Affairs Humaiun Kobir said on Sunday, according to Prothom Alo.
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye signed the agreement on August 6, pledging to bolster “collective deterrence”. Under the pact, an armed attack on any one of the three countries would be treated as an attack on all three.
The agreement was reached as tensions escalated in West Asia amid the conflict involving Iran, Israel and the United States.
India said on August 11 that it was assessing the implications of the pact in terms of “national security as well as considerations of regional, peace and stability”.
Bangladesh sees no security risk in joining the agreement, Kobir said on Sunday, according to The Daily Star.
The pact links three Sunni Muslim-majority nations with significant strategic weight. Saudi Arabia is a major global oil exporter and is home to Islam’s holiest sites. Pakistan is the world’s only nuclear-armed Muslim-majority state, while Türkiye has NATO’s second-largest military.
Against that backdrop, Bangladesh views the agreement favourably “within the broader context of addressing challenges facing the Islamic world”, Kobir said, according to Prothom Alo.
“When we receive a formal invitation, we will inform you,” he was quoted as saying. “However, discussions are ongoing. Positive dialogue is taking place with all parties involved, including our bilateral partners.”
Kobir said Bangladesh needed to pursue its foreign policy and security partnerships in a “very integrated and flexible” way. Joining the agreement would allow Dhaka to “balance our international relations”, he added.
Strained ties between New Delhi and Dhaka
Kobir’s remarks come as relations between India and Bangladesh remain strained, with uncertainty persisting over Dhaka’s request for New Delhi to extradite former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
On August 21, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s office told PTI that Dhaka had not yet decided whether he would travel to India next month.
Bangladesh has received two invitations from India. The first is from Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a bilateral visit. The second is for Rahman, in his role as chairperson of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, to attend the BRICS summit.
The summit is scheduled to take place in New Delhi on September 12 and 13.
BRICS includes India, Brazil, Russia, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. The United States regards the grouping as seeking to develop an economic counterweight to Washington.
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