Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye signed a trilateral defence agreement in Makkah on 07 August 2026, committing each state to regard an armed attack against any one of the signatories as an attack against all three.
According to Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement at Al-Safa Palace, with their respective defence and foreign ministers in attendance.
The ministry published the agreement’s operative clause as a commitment that “any armed attack against any one of the three States shall be regarded as an attack against them all.” The three countries also undertook to enhance “all aspects of defence cooperation.”
Purely Defensive and Open to Others
Sharif described the agreement as a historic pact and a shield of peace for coming generations. Information Minister Attaullah Tarar presented the signing as recognition of Pakistan’s defence capabilities, while Pakistani officials publicly credited Field Marshal Asim Munir, alongside the Prime Minister, with facilitating the agreement.
Islamabad has characterized the pact as purely defensive and open to other countries that uphold its principles. A Turkish official similarly stated that the agreement is defensive in nature, is not directed against any specific actor and is not aimed at Iran.
The trilateral communiqué also states that the agreement does not signal an intention to establish a military axis or sectarian bloc, and that it is neither connected to nuclear ambitions nor intended to fuel an arms race.
Duration, Scope and the Missing Treaty Text
The full treaty text has not been released.
The published summary does not specify how long the agreement will remain in force, how ratification or withdrawal would be handled, what geographic area it covers, or what command and consultation structures would govern a collective response. It also leaves unclear whether the obligation to respond to an attack is automatic and mandatory or subject to consultation among the signatories.
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia announced their bilateral Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA), signed on 17 September 2025, in much the same way: through a communiqué rather than the publication of the treaty itself. Roughly eleven months later, the agreement’s detailed provisions remain undisclosed.
On the nuclear question, Pakistan’s defence minister has stated that nuclear weapons were not on the radar. Saudi officials, meanwhile, have described the arrangement as comprehensive and encompassing all military means.
A Pact Signed Mid-War
The agreement was signed during an active regional war, amid repeated strikes against Saudi Arabia by Iran, Houthi forces in Yemen and Iraqi Shia armed groups. These attacks have reached both Saudi oil-export infrastructure and projects associated with the kingdom’s Vision 2030 development programme.
The September 2025 bilateral agreement followed the Israeli strike against Hamas negotiators in Doha on 09 September 2025, an event that damaged Gulf confidence in the protective value of American basing arrangements.
Iran’s initial reaction to the trilateral pact was dismissive. Iranian parliamentarian Ebrahim Rezaei said that a paper agreement with Türkiye and Pakistan would not provide the signatories with security.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs said that it was closely following the development. This was consistent with New Delhi’s response to the 2025 bilateral agreement, when it said that it would study the implications of the pact and expected Riyadh to keep Indian sensitivities in mind.
Manpower, Capital and Defence Industry
Each of the three signatories brings a distinct set of assets to the arrangement.
Türkiye operates the second-largest military in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and has developed a defence industry with established production lines in unmanned systems, electronic warfare and precision-guided munitions. Saudi Arabia supplies capital and has been working to localize the production of defence equipment that it has historically imported. Pakistan contributes manpower, operational experience and the only nuclear arsenal held by a Muslim-majority state.
The 2025 bilateral agreement is reported to have already placed approximately 8,000 Pakistani personnel, along with aircraft and air-defence systems, in Saudi Arabia. The trilateral agreement therefore builds upon a security relationship that is already active in the field, while formalizing an arrangement that Pakistan has maintained informally with the Gulf for decades.
Quwa has followed the individual components of this alignment through its coverage of Pakistan’s strategic ambiguity on the Saudi defence pact, Field Marshal Asim Munir’s visit to Türkiye and the deepening of Ankara–Islamabad relations, and an assessment of Iran’s standing as a regional power.
Taken together, these developments show a collection of bilateral security relationships being consolidated within a single trilateral framework. In each instance, the signatories have made the operative collective-defence clause public while withholding the provisions that would determine how that commitment is enforced.
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