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Turkey Risks Being Drawn Into Saudi Arabia’s War in Yemen

By
Oğul Tuna

Ankara’s new defense pact with Riyadh risks drawing Turkey into the war in Yemen. The country’s past experience offers a grim reminder of how ordinary Turks pay for such entanglements.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan attends the Mecca Agreement Foreign Ministers Meeting for Joint Defense alongside Pakistan's Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan at the United Nations, on September 24, 2026.

The Mecca Agreement recently signed by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan claims to be a defensive pact. But Donald Trump’s already pushing Turkey to help the Saudis’ war against the Houthis. (Mustafa Hatipoglu / Anadolu via Getty Images)

There are few places outside Turkey that occupy such a mournful place in the country’s popular memory as Yemen.

For generations, Turks who knew little about the politics of the Arabian Peninsula nevertheless knew Yemen through folk songs. They were ballads about young men sent from Anatolia to fight in Yemen, many of whom never returned. They told of mothers waiting for sons, women waiting for husbands, and a distant land associated above all with death.

One of the most haunting was recorded by Ruhi Su, the great communist interpreter of Turkish folk music. Its refrain addresses the country with a bitter grandeur:

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