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Tom Hussain

A defence pact among Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan appears to be aimed at deterring Iran and Israel from tearing up the Middle East with their conflict amid Washington’s inability to guarantee regional security, observers say.
Under the terms of the deal signed on Friday in Mecca by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, an armed attack against any one of the three states “shall be regarded as an attack against them all”.
No further details have been made public, but the signatories were quick to clarify that they had not formed a military coalition, and that the agreement served as a deterrent.
In a social media post, Saudi Deputy Minister for Public Diplomacy Rayed Krimly said the pact “does not threaten the security of any country in the region and should not be viewed as an escalation of tensions between any two states”.
Erdogan followed suit, saying the agreement “targets no country and is open to the participation of all brotherly countries that aim for the peace, prosperity, and stability of our region”.
Former Qatari prime minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani described the tripartite pact as “a step that calls for optimism” and expressed hope that other Gulf Cooperation Council members would “take the initiative to join it”.
Analysts see Qatar as an obvious candidate to join the pact because of its pre-existing defence agreement with Turkey. Kuwait is also a potential signatory following ratification of its expanded defence cooperation agreement with Pakistan in July.
But the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain are unlikely to join the Mecca pact after having normalised relations with Israel in 2020 under the US-led Abraham Accords. The same is likely true of Egypt and Jordan given that their decades-old US-brokered peace deals with Israel require them to intercept threats faced by the Jewish-majority state.

Over time, the Mecca pact may emerge as a third geopolitical “centre of gravity” in the Middle East, analysts say.
But it “will not develop into an Islamic Nato with dozens of countries accepting identical defence obligations”, according to Andreas Krieg, an associate professor of defence studies at King’s College London.
Instead, it will attract “concentric circles of cooperation”, with some states taking part in joint military exercises with the Mecca pact signatories, and others in maritime security, intelligence and defence procurement projects.
Krieg expects Egypt, Jordan and other Muslim-majority states to increasingly coordinate with the grouping “without necessarily becoming formal treaty members”.
But Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a Middle East fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, is sceptical that the Mecca pact can succeed without the active participation of Egypt, the Arab world’s largest military power, or the UAE, the Middle East’s commercial powerhouse.
Regardless, the pact is likely to face an early test by Iran and its “axis of resistance” allies, according to Ulrichsen.
Yemen’s Houthi movement and Iraqi militias, acting in concert with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, were planning to mount joint missile and drone strikes against the kingdom, a senior Saudi official told reporters on Thursday.

Ulrichsen said the response from Pakistan and Turkey would “provide an indication of whether collective deterrence is workable in practice”.
For Krieg, the Mecca pact “will not transform the battlefield overnight, but it will immediately strengthen Saudi deterrence and make further attacks against the kingdom more consequential”. The biggest immediate effect of the pact is “psychological and strategic”.
Iran would now have to calculate that continuous attacks on Saudi territory could widen the confrontation beyond Riyadh and Washington, Krieg said. “It therefore raises the potential cost of targeting Saudi Arabia.”
Farzan Sabet, an Iran expert at the Geneva Graduate Institute, also saw the agreement as “potentially reinforcing deterrence signalling” against a direct Iranian attack on Saudi Arabia.
There have not been any such attacks since Pakistan, having mediated the first ceasefire of the conflict in early April, deployed some 8,000 troops, air defence systems and fighter jets in Saudi Arabia under the mutual defence pact the two countries signed in September last year.
It is so far unclear if Pakistan’s expeditionary force has been involved in the recent interception of missiles and drones fired at the kingdom by Yemen’s Houthis and Revolutionary Guards-led Iraqi militias.
Sabet does not believe the Mecca pact will pose much of a deterrent to such non-state actors unless Pakistan and Turkey pursue them. Both countries have already stated that their commitment to Saudi Arabia’s defence is purely defensive.
The Iraqi militias agreed to “postpone” further attacks against Riyadh following an appeal by Hadi al-Amiri, the head of another Iran-aligned faction.
On Friday, Amiri urged the groups to “exercise restraint for the sake of Iraq’s highest interests” amid the threat of a second joint Saudi-US air operation against them.
According to Krieg, the practical effect of the three-way arrangement would be greater air and missile defence cooperation, intelligence sharing, protection of critical infrastructure, manpower support and potentially expanded maritime security.

Pakistan and Turkey have already voiced support for a planned Saudi-led international naval coalition to protect shipping in the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandab Strait and Gulf of Aden, launched last month after the Houthis imposed a maritime blockade against Riyadh.
Islamabad could quickly supply Riyadh with personnel, while Istanbul could provide defence systems, technical expertise and defence-industrial support, Krieg said.
The uptick in attacks by the Houthis and their allies on Saudi Arabia has coincided with an agreement between Iran and Oman on a framework for the administration of the Strait of Hormuz. With the accord, Iran could maintain its chokehold on shipping in the strait by curbing oil and gas supplies from its Gulf neighbours.
It is unclear for now whether US President Donald Trump will acquiesce to the arrangement between Iran and Oman, which analysts say would be tantamount to accepting strategic defeat.
Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan had chosen to join forces because “the regional security order has visibly failed”, Krieg said.
The so-called Third Gulf War has shown that “American military predominance does not automatically translate into protection for US partners”, he added.
Infrastructure in the region remains vulnerable to Iranian missiles and drones, while Washington has also “struggled to restrain Israeli unilateralism”.


Israel has made it clear that it will not withdraw its forces from recently occupied territory in Lebanon and Syria, despite US efforts to find diplomatic solutions that address the Jewish-majority state’s security concerns about Hezbollah and the Islamist government in Damascus.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hardline coalition government has intensified military operations in Gaza, rejecting a proposed US-brokered agreement announced last week under which Hamas agreed to disarm in return for a staggered Israeli military withdrawal.
“For Riyadh, exclusive dependence on the American umbrella has therefore become a strategic risk,” Krieg said.
Ulrichsen said the Mecca pact brought together three regional powers, all of which had a common need to diversify their defence relationships due to challenges posed by the Iran war and other regional conflicts in recent years.
Krieg noted the three countries’ “unusually complementary needs”, with Saudi Arabia aiming for greater military depth, Turkey seeking to grow its defence industry and Pakistan needing investments and other economic support.
Calling their agreement “an insurance” against an increasingly unpredictable regional system, he added: “It is not anti-American, but it is unmistakably post-dependency. These states no longer believe Washington should have a monopoly over organising their security.”


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Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (centre), flanked by Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (left) and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, signing a joint defence agreement in Mecca on Friday. Photo: Turkish Presidency Press Office/AFP


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Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (left), Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (centre) and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif meet in Mecca on Friday to sign a joint defence agreement. Photo Turkish Presidency Press/AFP

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The Mecca deal may emerge as a third geopolitical ‘centre of gravity’ in the Middle East, with more members joining, analysts say


The Mecca deal may emerge as a third geopolitical ‘centre of gravity’ in the Middle East, with more members joining, analysts say.


How Saudi Arabia-Turkey-Pakistan defence pact acts as ‘insurance’ over US disengagement

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The Mecca deal may emerge as a third geopolitical ‘centre of gravity’ in the Middle East, with more members joining, analysts say

The Mecca deal may emerge as a third geopolitical ‘centre of gravity’ in the Middle East, with more members joining, analysts say