Lorenzo Maria Pacini
The Mecca Pact signals solidarity, not war. Turkey remembers: Yemen is the "grave of the Turks."
The Mecca Pact is put to the test
On September 19, 2026, speaking to the Turkish broadcaster NTV, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan made a statement that was both measured and fraught with consequences. Saudi Arabia, under fire from the Houthis, "might have certain military needs, especially regarding technical matters," and Turkey "would have no problem meeting them." No declaration of war, no troops announced. Yet, for the first time, the Mecca Pact - the defensive alliance linking Riyadh, Ankara, and Islamabad - was invoked as an operational tool rather than a theoretical framework on paper. The question circulating in the most scathing commentary is whether Ankara is about to repeat the mistake that twice cost it dearly: setting foot in the highlands of Yemen. The serious answer is more interesting than the provocation, and points in the opposite direction.
The agreement signed in Mecca on August 7, 2026, by Mohammed bin Salman, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Shehbaz Sharif is modeled on NATO's Article 5: an armed attack against one of the three is an attack against all. The front pushing for this today is Yemeni. Since July 2026, after declaring a blockade of Saudi ports and the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the Houthis have repeatedly struck the Kingdom's territory, including attacks on Riyadh and the Aramco facility in Yanbu. This is the extension, on the Saudi side, of the broader war sparked by U.S. and Israeli raids on Yemen.
The key point, however, is the gap between the treaty's language and the actual stance of its members. Fidan offers "technical" support, not troops. Islamabad makes it clear that no military response is on the table and that it will act "when the time is right." Washington, for its part, has rejected Saudi requests for direct support. Everyone calls for solidarity; no one is committing forces on the ground. That shared reluctance is not diplomatic timidity: it is the true subject of this analysis.
The long history of Yemeni victories against Turkey
Among the three signatories, Turkey is the only one for whom Yemen is not a strategic abstraction but a historical wound. The Ottomans invaded twice, and twice they were defeated. The first occupation, dating to 1538, was driven by the need to protect Red Sea trade routes from the Portuguese and to safeguard access to the holy sites. They took the Tihama and Sanaa, but the Zaidi highlands were never fully subdued; after nearly a century of intermittent war, by 1635 the Qasimid imams had expelled them from the country. Notable events from this first cycle include the conquest of 1538, the reestablishment of the Zaydi Imamate by al-Mansur al-Qasim (1597), and the complete expulsion of the Ottomans by 1635-1636 at the hands of the Qasimid imams. The second occupation spanned the occupation of the Tihama (1849), the capture of Sanaa (1872), and the final withdrawal after 1918.
The return, in the mid-19th century, was even worse. The occupation of the Tihama and the capture of Sanaa - spurred by the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and control of the Red Sea - ushered in decades of constant rebellion. Imam Yahya's uprisings rendered the highlands ungovernable by force, until the Treaty of Daan of October 9, 1911, recognized his authority over the Zaydis: the formal acknowledgment of a stalemate that no expedition could break. The final withdrawal came after 1918. The death toll during the second occupation and the campaign of the Great War numbered in the tens of thousands; disease claimed more lives than battle. It is no coincidence that Yemen entered the Ottoman lexicon as the "grave of the Turks," and the military cemetery in Sanaa still holds its records. Ottoman losses in Yemen during the second occupation and the Southern Arabia campaign of the Great War totaled tens of thousands, with disease - not combat - as the primary cause, consistent with the mortality rate of the Ottoman army as a whole. The Turkish military cemetery in Sanaa, restored in 2011, preserves their memory.
Reducing all of this to neo-Ottoman nostalgia, however, would be a mistake in perspective, because the problem is not an Ottoman one: it is geographical and social. The same terrain has brought down others. Nasser's Egypt became bogged down there between 1962 and 1967, in what many called its Vietnam; the Saudi-led coalition, since 2015, has poured years of airpower and money into the highlands without ever subduing it. Egypt's intervention in the North Yemeni civil war (1962-1967) - which cost Nasser a protracted conflict often likened to an "Arab Vietnam" - and the Saudi-led coalition active since 2015 confirm the same outcome: overwhelming firepower and vast resources, yet the highlands remain unconquered.
The reason is structural. The rugged terrain, the fortress-like villages, a tribal structure that absorbs and outlasts the occupier, and a religious-political tradition - the Zaidi doctrine of the duty to rise up against an unjust ruler - that renews resistance with every generation: these are the factors that reward the defender and bleed dry those who project force from the outside. The Houthis are the latest incarnation of this constant, not an anomaly. And it is precisely for this reason that external actors opt for a naval strategy - the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandab, and the Saudi-led maritime force that is being discussed - because it keeps them away from the land.
An indelible memory
The provocative premise from which we began - Turkey "eager" to relive its defeat - thus turns the logic of the facts on its head. It is not the memory of Yemen that tempts Ankara, but discipline. Erdogan's Turkey has projected itself into many theaters - from Syria to Libya, from northern Iraq to the Caucasus via Azerbaijan - but always where it could apply decisive and limited force or act by proxy, never within a highland insurrection with no way out. Fidan's cautious phrasing - "technical" needs, a pact that "does not replace existing alliances" and, if anything, "may expand" - is the language of a power that wants the political dividends of solidarity without its military burden.
Viewed through a multipolar lens, the Mecca Pact is a Sunni realignment orchestrated by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan - a safety net taking shape as U.S. guarantees prove conditional. Yet a collective defense treaty modeled on Article 5 reaches its limit precisely here: that model responds to aggression by a state across a border; it lacks a doctrine against a non-state actor that cannot be conquered and will not be deterred. It is the gap between the grammar of the alliance and the nature of the adversary.
Looking ahead, over a twelve-month horizon: it is likely that Turkish support will remain technical - air defense, surveillance, ammunition, advisors - rather than translating into combat deployment; it is highly unlikely that Ankara will commit ground troops to Yemen.
The indicators that would contradict this assessment are clear and observable: the arrival of Turkish or Pakistani combat units, a formal invocation of the mutual defense clause, or a shift from naval interdiction in the Red Sea to ground operations on the plateau. Until then, the pact's value will lie in signaling and deterrence by association, not as a tool against the Houthis.
The graveyard of empires, after all, does not need to be reopened to continue functioning: it suffices simply to be remembered.