Ulaş Sevinç, chairman of the Sosyalist Eşitlik Partisi–Dördüncü Enternasyonal (Socialist Equality Party–Fourth International), the Turkish section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), issued a video statement Tuesday on the incoming vote in the Turkish Parliament on the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement. The video and the text of the statement are published below.

The Mecca Joint Defense Agreement is being put to a vote in the Turkish Parliament. The Sosyalist Eşitlik Partisi–Dördüncü Enternasyonal opposes this pact unconditionally. We base ourselves on the overwhelming popular opposition to war against Iran and Yemen, to the genocide of the Palestinians and to collaboration with the imperialist powers. We are fighting to mobilize this opposition in an international antiwar movement.

The agreement between Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is modeled on Article 5 of NATO. Under it, an armed attack on any one of the three countries will be considered an attack on all of them. Withdrawal from the pact will not be possible for the first 10 years.

The claim that this is a “defense” agreement is false. What is to be “defended” is the Saudi regime, which opened its bases to the US war against Iran, has slaughtered the people of Yemen through bombing and starvation and collaborates with the Zionist state.

What is to be “defended” are the reactionary geopolitical interests that the Turkish bourgeoisie is seeking to advance in collaboration with US imperialism. This agreement ties the workers and youth of Türkiye to a chain of conflicts stretching from the Eastern Mediterranean to South Asia and puts them in danger.

Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the US-Israeli war against Iran, the Saudi monarchy’s war against the Houthi Ansarullah movement in Yemen, NATO’s war against Russia over Ukraine and Washington’s preparations for war against China are interconnected fronts of a war for the redivision of the world among the imperialist powers.

US President Trump hailed the Mecca agreement as a “big, bold and important first step.” Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Levent Gümrükçü said the agreement is “essentially complementary to all the multilateral platforms on European security of which we are a member, above all NATO.” This agreement does not express independence from imperialism but complete subordination to it.

The bourgeois political establishment and the trade union confederations in Türkiye do not oppose the Mecca alliance on principle and are doing nothing to mobilize popular opposition. The opposition to the agreement by the New Party (Yeni Parti) led by Özgür Özel, itself pro-NATO and pro-imperialist, is a tactical reservation based on the interests of the Turkish bourgeoisie. It was none other than the Republican People’s Party (CHP), then led by Özel, that in 2025 prepared an anti-Iran report for NATO proposing the alliance’s expansion into the Middle East.

War preparations abroad and the escalating assault on social and democratic rights at home are two sides of the same process. Repression and censorship of the press are increasing, and political arrests are mounting. The bill for rearmament is being handed to working people through falling wages and social cuts. The threats by Turkish government representatives—“Do not be tempted by France!”—reflect the ruling class’s fear of an explosion of the growing opposition among youth and the working class.

The Sosyalist Eşitlik Partisi appeals not to the establishment parties in parliament or to the government but to the working class of Türkiye, the Middle East and internationally. This is the social force that has no interest in the escalating imperialist war and that is capable of stopping it.

In this struggle, we call on you to build independent rank-and-file committees in workplaces and schools, to unite with your class brothers and sisters in the region and around the world in the fight for a Socialist Federation of the Middle East, and to build the Sosyalist Eşitlik Partisi.