Eight years ago, Turkey and Saudi Arabia appeared to be heading towards lasting enmity. On Friday, August 7, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman stood together in Mecca as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed a collective-defence agreement declaring that an armed attack on one would be considered an attack on all three.
The contrast is difficult to ignore.
On October 2, 2018, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul and never came out. He was killed and dismembered by Saudi agents. US intelligence subsequently concluded that Mohammed bin Salman approved the operation, an allegation the crown prince has denied while accepting responsibility for the killing occurring “under his watch.”
The murder plunged Turkish-Saudi relations into their deepest crisis in decades. Ankara pursued the case internationally and Turkish officials released a stream of evidence implicating Saudi operatives. Erdoğan repeatedly demanded accountability.
Then geopolitics intervened.
By 2022, Turkey transferred its Khashoggi trial to Saudi Arabia, removing one of the principal obstacles to reconciliation. Erdoğan travelled to the kingdom and the relationship gradually shifted from confrontation towards economic, diplomatic and eventually military cooperation. By May 2026, Ankara and Riyadh were discussing further easing visa restrictions as part of their revived Coordination Council.
Riyadh, meanwhile, was hardly placing all its Mediterranean bets on Turkey.
Saudi Arabia has cultivated an increasingly close relationship with Greece. In May, the two countries convened their Strategic Partnership Council in Athens, while a Greek Patriot battery stationed in Saudi Arabia since 2021 actually intercepted Iranian missiles this March.
Saudi diplomacy has also moved closer to Cyprus. Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan travelled to Limassol in May as a special participant in the EU foreign ministers’ informal meeting hosted by the Cypriot EU presidency, discussing Middle Eastern security alongside European ministers.
That makes Friday’s agreement particularly revealing. Riyadh is not choosing Ankara over Athens or Nicosia. It is constructing overlapping relationships wherever they enhance Saudi security.
And Turkey has made its own calculation.
The Khashoggi rupture has not been resolved so much as overtaken by strategic necessity. A murder that once threatened to redefine Turkish-Saudi relations has been eclipsed by Iran, Israel, regional war and the search for new security arrangements.
Eight years after Istanbul, Erdoğan and Mohammed bin Salman are no longer arguing over accountability.
They are discussing collective defence.