The Ankara Center for Crisis and Policy Studies (ANKASAM) presents the views of Arhama Siddiqa, Research Fellow at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI), on the significance of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement for Pakistan, the developments that paved the way for its signing, the future of defence and security cooperation among the three countries, and the agreement’s broader regional and strategic implications.
1. How do you assess the significance of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement signed by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye on 7 August 2026 for Pakistan’s regional security and its partnerships with the other two countries?
The Makkah Joint Defence Agreement of 7 August 2026 represents a significant elevation of Pakistan’s defence relationships with Saudi Arabia and Türkiye from strong bilateral partnerships towards an institutionalised trilateral security framework. Its most consequential provision is the commitment that an armed attack against any one of the three states will be regarded as an attack against all three. Pakistan has explicitly framed this in terms of collective self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter and has stressed that the arrangement is defensive and is not directed against any particular country.
Now for Pakistan, the agreement essentially brings together two of its most important defence relationships. With Saudi Arabia, Pakistan already had the Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement signed in September 2025, alongside decades of military training, deployments and institutional cooperation. With Türkiye, Pakistan has developed an increasingly substantial defence relationship covering training, naval cooperation and defence-industrial collaboration. The Makkah Accord therefore does not create these relationships from scratch; rather, it places them within a common strategic framework and substantially increases their political and deterrent value.
There is also a broader strategic benefit for Pakistan. Saudi Arabia brings considerable economic resources and influence within the Arab and Islamic worlds, while Türkiye possesses one of the region’s largest armed forces and an increasingly sophisticated indigenous defence industry. Pakistan contributes substantial military experience and its own defence-industrial capabilities. This complementarity gives Pakistan opportunities for deeper cooperation in training, technology, defence production, air and maritime security and potentially intelligence coordination. At the same time, the public text does not specify particular military commitments or operational mechanisms. It would therefore be premature (as many have done so earlier) to describe the agreement as a NATO-type alliance or, in particular, to interpret it as an automatic extension of Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent.
From Pakistan’s foreign-policy perspective, perhaps the larger significance is that the agreement increases Pakistan’s relevance in the evolving security architecture of West Asia while allowing Islamabad to continue presenting itself as a supporter of regional stability rather than bloc confrontation. This is important because Pakistan has substantial interests not only with Saudi Arabia and Türkiye but also with Iran, the GCC states, China and other regional partners. The government’s emphasis that the Makkah Accord is an instrument of deterrence rather than confrontation is therefore strategically important, not simply diplomatic language.
2. What factors do you think have contributed to the decision by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye to deepen their defence cooperation at this particular time?
The immediate context is the sharp deterioration of the regional security environment during 2026. The conflict that followed the US-Israeli attacks on Iran on 28 February, subsequent Iranian attacks affecting Gulf states, disruption to energy supplies and continuing insecurity around maritime routes have exposed the vulnerability of regional states to conflicts that can rapidly cross national borders. Saudi Arabia, in particular, has faced direct security and economic consequences, while Pakistan and Türkiye have strong interests in preventing a prolonged regional confrontation from destabilising trade, energy markets and neighbouring regions.
The agreement also reflects a growing preference among major regional states for greater regional ownership of security. The experience of recent conflicts has generated questions about whether traditional external security guarantees alone are sufficient. In that environment, Riyadh, Ankara and Islamabad have an incentive to develop complementary regional capabilities without necessarily abandoning their existing relationships with the United States, NATO or other partners. This is consistent with the official clarification that the Makkah Accord neither replaces nor abrogates the three countries’ existing bilateral or multilateral agreements.
Importantly, the agreement should not be viewed simply as an emergency reaction to recent events. Reuters reported that negotiations had been under way for nearly a year, and the trilateral arrangement builds upon a much longer history of defence cooperation. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia formalised their mutual-defence relationship in September 2025; Pakistan and Türkiye already maintain extensive military cooperation; and Saudi-Turkish defence ties have expanded substantially, including through defence-industry cooperation. The present regional crisis therefore appears to have accelerated an existing process of strategic convergence rather than created it.
There has also been growing political coordination among these states. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye were already consulting closely on the Iran conflict, Palestine and wider regional security, including through the R4 format with Egypt in June. That meeting explicitly emphasised regional collective security, protection of the Gulf states, stability in the Levant and the importance of diplomatic solutions to the Iran crisis. The Makkah agreement can therefore be seen as the defence dimension of a broader pattern of political coordination that was already emerging.
3. Looking ahead, how do you expect the agreement to shape security cooperation among the three countries and in the wider region? Do you foresee any diplomatic or strategic considerations that may influence its future implementation?
In practical terms, the immediate challenge will be turning a strong political commitment into credible institutional cooperation. The agreement commits the three states to enhancing all aspects of defence cooperation but the publicly released text does not define command structures, consultation procedures, thresholds for activation or the precise obligations that would follow an attack. Consequently, the next phase is likely to involve greater interaction between defence ministries and armed forces, more joint exercises and training, enhanced intelligence and early-warning cooperation, and potentially closer collaboration in air and missile defence, counter-drone capabilities, maritime security and defence production. These are logical areas for implementation given the three countries’ existing capabilities and relationships, rather than measures yet publicly confirmed under the agreement.
The maritime dimension could become particularly important. Recent disruptions to regional shipping and energy routes have demonstrated that security in the Gulf, Arabian Sea and surrounding waterways cannot easily be compartmentalised. Pakistan and Türkiye have already indicated support for Saudi-led efforts concerning maritime security. Cooperation in surveillance, naval exercises, protection of shipping and coordination against emerging maritime threats could therefore become one of the more practical manifestations of the trilateral relationship.
Diplomatically, however, the three governments will have to manage perceptions carefully. Pakistan has a direct border with Iran and an important interest in stable Pakistan-Iran relations. Ankara also maintains extensive political and economic relations with Tehran. Islamabad and Ankara have consequently been careful to emphasise that the agreement is not directed against Iran. Tehran’s initial reaction has been relatively measured: on 10 August, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said it saw no reason to regard the pact as directed against Iran and suggested that greater reliance on regional security mechanisms could be positive if they were inclusive. That response provides some diplomatic space for the signatories to maintain the agreement’s defensive character.
Pakistan will also have to manage the agreement’s implications for South Asia. Any collective-defence arrangement involving Pakistan will inevitably be examined in India through the prism of “Pakistan-India security competition”. Islamabad’s interest would therefore be to avoid presenting the Makkah Accord as an instrument for altering the bilateral strategic balance in South Asia and instead continue emphasising its stated purpose of deterring external aggression and contributing to wider regional stability. The same principle applies to Türkiye’s NATO membership and Saudi Arabia’s extensive security ties with the United States: the success of the agreement will partly depend on demonstrating that it complements rather than seeks to overturn existing security relationships.
A further question is whether the arrangement eventually expands. Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has indicated that participation could be open to other countries willing to subscribe to its principles and peaceful resolution of disputes. Expansion could increase the pact’s diplomatic and deterrent weight, but it could also complicate decision-making and increase concerns that an inclusive security framework is becoming a geopolitical bloc. The distinction between those two outcomes will depend heavily on membership criteria, institutional design and continued engagement with states outside the arrangement.
Overall, the Makkah Accord should be understood less as the creation of an “Islamic NATO” and more as an important experiment in regionally driven collective security. For Pakistan, it offers greater strategic weight, stronger defence partnerships and potentially greater access to defence-industrial and security cooperation. But its long-term value will depend on whether deterrence is combined with diplomacy. Pakistan’s strongest position would be one in which the agreement strengthens its capacity to defend itself and its partners while preserving Islamabad’s ability to engage Iran, the Gulf states and other regional actors and to support political solutions to regional conflicts. That approach is broadly consistent with Pakistan’s official position that the Accord is intended to secure peace through strength rather than confrontation.
