Trump Floats Sending Turkey Against the Houthis as Ankara Rules Out an Attack
Trump said he might ask Turkey to act against the Houthis. Ankara says its Mecca pact is defensive, and Egypt offers support. What was said and what it commits.
In this article
Context
Three days after Houthi missiles hit Riyadh’s airport, the offers of help arrived in a single afternoon. Donald Trump said he might ask Turkey to step in. Egypt’s foreign minister said Cairo would provide support without reservation. Turkey’s own foreign minister had already said his country would not launch an attack from Saudi soil. Read together, the statements describe three different wars.
Key takeaways
Trump said on 13 October that he “might” ask President Erdoğan to intervene and that Erdoğan “would do as I ask”. Turkey’s foreign minister said five days earlier that the Mecca pact is “not an offensive agreement”. Egypt’s foreign minister said Cairo would respond to whatever Riyadh asks and is considering joining the pact. The Saudi cabinet promised the Houthis would face consequences. It did not ask any ally for troops in public. Germany, Turkey and Lebanon condemned the attacks in calls to the crown prince, according to Saudi Gazette. None of the readouts mentioned troops.
What was said on Tuesday
Speaking to reporters at the White House on 13 October, Trump said the Houthis are “behaving very badly”, and he named Erdoğan as a possible helper. “President Erdogan, I think, would do as I ask,” he said, according to Al-Monitor, which reported that the White House is weighing deeper involvement in the Saudi campaign. He also called Iran “a failed country” and said a US decision on Iran would come “very soon”.
Hours earlier, Erdoğan condemned the Houthi attacks in a call with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to Arab News, and offered condolences for the dead. Turkish outlets reported that Türkiye would stand by Saudi Arabia in the coming period. The readout said nothing about troops.
Egypt’s foreign minister offered more. Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, speaking on the sidelines of the IMF meetings in Bangkok, told Bloomberg Television: “Whatever is being asked by the Saudis, of course we will respond.” He added: “Without any reservation, we provide all kinds of support.” Asked about joining the Mecca pact, he said: “The issue is under serious consideration by the Egyptian side.”
The Saudi cabinet, chaired by the crown prince, warned that the Houthis would bear the consequences of attacks on airports, pilgrims and civilian infrastructure, and said it would not tolerate threats to navigation in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab. Chancellor Friedrich Merz also phoned the crown prince, and Saudi Gazette reported that he condemned the attacks as terrorism.
Analysis
Ankara has already set its limit
Trump’s suggestion lands on a position Turkey stated in public a few days before. Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said in Ankara that “This is a defence agreement” and “If one of the countries is attacked, you support its defence. This is not an offensive agreement.” Turkey, he said, will not send its troops to another country’s territory to launch an attack.
Set the two statements side by side. Trump describes Erdoğan as a friend who would do as asked. Fidan describes a treaty that does not cover what Trump has in mind. Our earlier report on Fidan and Pakistan’s Shehbaz Sharif noted that the pact has no joint command, no standing force and no defined trigger, and that Fidan said ratification papers were complete but parliament had not voted.
Analysis
What is the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement?
Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement on 7 August 2026. Its core principle is that an armed attack on one of the three counts as an attack on all. On 5 October the members agreed in Riyadh to act on their collective defence commitments immediately, according to Middle East Monitor, which cited Anadolu.
No force numbers or dates have been published. Egypt’s interest in joining would widen the pact on paper. Abdelatty said only that the issue is under “serious consideration”, and no application has been reported.
Analysis
The audience for each statement
Trump also said the Houthis are trying to push up oil prices before the US midterm elections, according to reports of the same remarks. The framing ties a Yemeni war to a domestic election, and it comes as a recent AP-NORC poll, cited by Al-Monitor, found 69 percent of Americans said the Iran war had not been worth fighting. Earlier we examined why Trump has so far declined to join the fight. Asking Ankara to act would let Washington support Riyadh without American casualties.
The Saudi side is saying little about outside troops. The cabinet statement named the Houthis and the coalition, not Turkey or Egypt. The Saudi capital has also been struck repeatedly, and Arab News reported that Houthi strikes killed 13 people at King Khalid International Airport on Saturday.
What to watch
Whether Turkey’s parliament votes on ratification, and what the text says about deployments. Whether Riyadh publicly asks Ankara or Cairo for anything beyond statements. Whether Egypt’s “serious consideration” becomes a formal application. Whether Trump’s “I might do that” becomes a call to Erdoğan that Ankara confirms. The next Houthi strike on a Saudi airport, which would test every promise made on Tuesday.
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