Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan Sign Defence Pact
Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed a mutual-defence agreement in Mecca on Friday, binding the three regional powers to treat an armed attack on any one of them as an attack on all. The “Mecca Joint Defence Agreement”, signed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, President Erdogan and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, was cast as a response to the turmoil of the Iran war. Officials insisted the pact was “purely defensive” and not aimed at any particular country.
The agreement unites formidable weight: Turkey fields NATO’s second-largest army, Saudi Arabia is the world’s top oil exporter, and Pakistan is the only Muslim-majority nuclear power. Its NATO-style “attack on one is an attack on all” clause, quoted in identical statements from Ankara and Islamabad, marks a significant realignment as Sunni states hedge against a widening conflict that has rained missiles onto the Gulf. A Saudi minister stressed it was not an attempt to build a “military axis or a sectarian bloc”, and the pact is said to be open to other states. Its practical reach — and how Iran and Israel read it — will now be tested. Watch which other countries join and how the pact shapes the region’s alignments.