IN an evolving strategic development, last week, Pakistan, Turkiye and Saudi Arabia agreed to increase the scope of trilateral defence cooperation. The three sides reaffirmed the importance of combining the intellectual, technical and financial and human resources of the three friendly nations towards the achievement of shared objectives and attainment of self-sufficiency in the defence domain,” it said. Acknowledging their historical relations, the three countries reiterated the strategic intent to increase the scope of trilateral cooperation and the need to enhance the pace of collaboration in pursuit of common goals, the military’s media wing said.

The second Trilateral Defence Collaboration platform meeting was held last Tuesday at the GHQ, the headquarters of Pakistan’s army, in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. It was attended by senior military officials from the three nations. At this meeting, emphasis was placed on the importance of combining intellectual, technical, financial and human resources to achieve common objectives and attain self-sufficiency in defence.

Notably, the first meeting between the three countries was held in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, on August 2023. Whereas, the third meeting of the platform will be held during the World Defence Show in Riyadh next month. Turkey’s growing defence capabilities: Recently, from the designing of the aircraft carrier to the construction of assault ships, the Turkish defence industry executive committee decides to develop the country’s military capability with a meeting under the chairmanship of Turkish President Erdogan. As of 2020, the Turkish Armed Forces had an active strength of around 355,200 active personnel consisting of 260,200 armed forces, 45,000 naval forces and 50,000 air forces. In addition, it was estimated that there were 378,700 reserve........

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