00:00Senator, I want to know from you, is this bilateral mutual defence deal just the beginning?
00:06Are we seeing the groundwork for what some analysts and commentators are calling an Islamic NATO?
00:16Well, I don't like the word NATO because NATO is a relic of the Cold War.
00:20And NATO's role has been very negative even after the end of the Soviet Union.
00:26But yes, there is a feeling that the time has come for Muslim countries or countries which face threats to come together and also beef up their military strengths.
00:38For starters, of course, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have taken this initiative, which has been, by the way, welcomed from countries like Egypt and Iran also, incidentally.
00:47And then you would know that Turkey's aerospace industry is establishing what is called the KAAAN fighter jets in which Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Indonesia are interested.
01:03And at the same time, Pakistan and Turkey have a very strong bilateral arrangement on defence issues, on defence joint production issues.
01:12And then now Egypt and Turkey are doing the same.
01:15So I think this pattern is going to increase bilaterally and also perhaps multilaterally because of Israeli aggression and American inability to leash Netanyahu.
01:31And so that knows that America is no longer a country they can rely on.
01:37In the past, it was they were seen as American allies and they were banking on Washington.
01:41But I think that's no longer the case.
01:43In any case, there's a retrenchment of American power.
01:46We also in Pakistan feel that the global balance of economic and political power is shifting from the West to the East.
01:53It's an Asian century.
01:54And also the so-called rules-based international order is unravelling before our own eyes in any case because of this hypocrisy and double standards of the West.
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