On 07 August 2026, Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif formally signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement (MJDA) at Al-Safa Palace in Makkah, Saudi Arabia.
In a press release issued after the Makkah Al-Mukarramah Summit for Joint Defence, Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) stated:
“The Agreement is intended to strengthen collective deterrence against any act of aggression, and stipulates that any armed attack against one of the three States shall be regarded as an attack against them all. It further provides for the enhancement of all aspects of defence cooperation among the three states.”
The signing of the MJDA follows over six months of reported discussions between Islamabad, Riyadh, and Ankara on a potential trilateral security pact. The MJDA builds on the Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA), the bilateral Saudi Arabia–Pakistan accord signed in Riyadh on 17 September 2025.
Observers were quick to note that the MJDA includes a provision mirroring NATO’s Article 5 – i.e., ‘an attack on one will be considered an attack on all.’ However, there is also skepticism regarding the viability or likelihood of a joint-allied response to an attack under the MJDA, much of it carried over from the SMDA’s own first wartime test.
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