Turkey, Qatar, Pakistan and Indonesia signed an agreement in the Qatari capital of Doha on Wednesday to cooperate on weapons production, military training and research, Turkey’s defense ministry announced.
The Badr Memorandum of Understanding aims to combine the four countries’ manufacturing capabilities to develop their defense industries and supply military equipment to partner countries.
Joint production and sharing technology are central to the initiative, which builds on Turkey’s existing defense projects with the other three signatories, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
Qatar plans to establish a center for producing military equipment as it seeks to develop its own defense industry, the country’s minister of state for defense affairs, Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, told a security forum in Doha on Monday.
The US-Israeli war on Iran has disrupted Qatar’s energy production and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the open sea.
Turkey already supplies Qatar with armed drones and armored vehicles, builds warships in cooperation with Pakistan and has developed a tank with Indonesia.
Turkey, a NATO member that operates a military base in Qatar, has also expanded its security commitments in the Gulf. It signed a separate mutual defense pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in August, committing the three countries to treat an attack on one as an attack on all.
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