The trilateral pact signed by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan, officially named the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, contains a collective defense clause: an armed attack against one member state will be considered an attack against all.
According to official statements from Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry and Turkish authorities, the agreement aims to strengthen collective deterrence and promote regional stability. They claim it is not directed against any specific nation.
In practice, this is a formal upgrade of the bilateral Saudi-Pakistani pact signed last year, now expanded to include Ankara. The terms provide for intelligence sharing, combined training, and joint defense-industry projects.
Saudi Arabia brings financial weight, Turkey contributes advanced military technology, and Pakistan offers a battle-hardened army. Interestingly, the technological exchange between Pakistan and Turkey is already a source of concern for China, particularly in the drone sector, where the three countries compete directly.
The Saudi-Pakistani alliance is longstanding, but it has always been highly volatile. In 2015, Riyadh expected Islamabad to send troops to fight the Houthis in Yemen, but the Pakistani parliament voted for neutrality. This decision deeply irritated the Saudi monarchy, leading to a diplomatic freeze and the temporary suspension of credit facilities and subsidized oil supplies.
Another critical issue is that the Saudis are about to restart the civil war in Yemen, which will inevitably trigger retaliations. Does receiving retaliatory strikes for waging war through proxies and allies activate the collective defense clause? I have a strong impression that we will face serious deadlocks here.
The 2025 bilateral treaty was designed by Islamabad as a straightforward transactional swap: Pakistan would provide formal military security guarantees to Saudi Arabia in return for massive, immediate investments into its battered economy. Months after the signature, however, frustration simmered in Islamabad. Pakistan complained that despite formalizing the pact and deploying around 8,000 troops, fighter aircraft, and air-defense systems to Saudi soil, Riyadh’s promised productive investments never materialized. The Saudis continued to withhold transfers, limiting themselves to bureaucratic deposits tied to strict IMF conditions.
What changed now?
The full-scale military escalation in the Middle East completely altered Riyadh’s survival calculus. To repair the broken trust with Pakistan and persuade it to sign a new strategic joint-defense treaty, Saudi Arabia had to concede on the economic front.