Saudi-Pakistan-Turkiye pact: A new shield or strategic signal?

Published 8 August 2026 · india

The agreement names no adversary, but analysts say Iran and its regional network are central to the thinking behind it. Islamabad, Pakistan – Three folders

The agreement names no adversary, but analysts say Iran and its regional network are central to the thinking behind it. Islamabad, Pakistan – Three folders – two in green and one in crimson red – changed hands beneath a portrait of Saudi King Salman at al-Safa Palace in Mecca on Friday. Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkiye’s president, and Shehbaz Sharif, Pakistan’s prime minister, held them up for the cameras, the ink still fresh on the pages inside. The signatures of the three leaders had just bound Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan to the “Makkah Joint Defence Agreement”, which treats an attack on any one of the countries as an attack on all three. The mutual defence pact, which does not name a specific threat, was signed more than five months into the United States-Israel war on Iran, a conflict that has pulled missile and drone fire onto Gulf oil exporters, including Saudi Arabia, and shut down much of the Strait of Hormuz. It builds on a bilateral Saudi Arabia-Pakistan pact signed less than a year ago, now widened to include Turkiye’s defence industry and NATO-standard military. Sharif called it a “shield of peace” for the region, while Erdogan said the pact “does not target any country” and remains “open to the participation of all brotherly countries seeking peace, prosperity and stability”. Saudi officials also stressed the agreement does not pose any threat to regional security and does not come at the expense of the kingdom’s ties with other allies, including the US and Gulf countries. Still, the pact’s signing has raised questions about the region’s changing power dynamics. Muhammad Faisal, a security and foreign policy analyst, said the agreement’s value “lies in creating uncertainty for adversaries and strengthening collective deterrence, rather than specifying fixed military obligations similar to Western alliances”. Kamran Bokhari, a senior resident fellow at the Middle East Policy Council, a research centre based in Washington, DC, agreed the practical shift is minimal at this stage, calling it “a strategic signal” rather than “an operational alliance,” with any integrated military capacity years away. A pact year in the making The trilateral track itself is not new. Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan have run a formal defence-industrial forum since at least 2022, laying the groundwork long before the signing of last year’s bilateral agreement and the escalating regional tensions brought about by the war on Iran.

Sardar Masood Khan, Pakistan’s former ambassador to Washington and Beijing, said the Saudi-Pakistan pact “was and is a nucleus”, arguing that interest from countries such as Turkiye, Egypt, Qatar and Kuwait followed soon after its signing in September 2025. “Turkiye is the first to make up its mind,” he said. “This network may expand in the future.” Dania Thafer, executive director of the Gulf International Forum, said Kuwait and Qatar would be the most plausible candidates, pointing to Kuwait’s own emerging defence ties with Pakistan and Qatar’s longstanding relationship with Turkiye. “There are real opportunities, particularly with Qatar and Kuwait, to expand this pact, and mutual interests to move in that direction,” she said. “It is a space worth watching closely.” That reported interest has not emerged in a vacuum. Since October 2023, Israel has struck at least six countries across the region, including a September 2025 strike on Hamas leaders in Doha, its first known attack inside a Gulf state. And last month, Kuwait ratified a defence pact with Pakistan that was originally signed in 2023. The endorsed Arabic text, published in the official gazette, sets out 11 areas of cooperation, including training, logistics and intelligence-sharing – none of which resemble a mutual-defence clause. Its ninth article states the pact does not affect either party’s obligations under other international agreements, insulating it from entanglement elsewhere. Faisal argued the Mecca pact should be read in similar terms for now, while Bokhari said the absence of a named threat in its text was deliberate rather than accidental. “Everyone involved understands that the agreement is principally aimed at containing Iran and the network of non-state actors it has cultivated across the region, including Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iraqi Shia militias,” said Bokhari, adding that none of the three signatories is “yet prepared for an overt strategic confrontation with Tehran”. What each side brings The signing of the pact comes as Yemen’s Houthi rebels have resumed attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure and oil tankers in the Red Sea, while also threatening a maritime blockade on the kingdom. Saudi Arabia, which supports Yemen’s internationally recognised government, has responded with its own air attacks in Houthi-held areas. Aziz Alghasian, a Saudi researcher and senior non-resident fellow at the Gulf International Forum, said the Houthi threat to Saudi Arabia was not the pact’s direct cause but its accelerant. Calling it “Saudi-centric deterrence”, Alghasian said the kingdom has been seeking to develop its own capacity alongside building alliances to help it deter any attacks, instead of simply relying on US security guarantees.