Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye activate Makkah defence pact — SkimNews
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- Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye agreed at a Riyadh emergency meeting of the Makkah Alliance's Strategic Political and Defence Committee to operationalize the trilateral defense pact signed in August, approving recommendations to rapidly deploy military forces and capabilities in Saudi Arabia.
- The joint statement declared that an armed attack on any one of the three countries will be treated as an attack on all, but did not name the Houthis as the threat and offered no public deployment timeline.
- Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told Geo News that Pakistani and Turkish forces currently play only a 'supportive role,' with Saudi troops in combat operations; he said Pakistan is involved in reconnaissance.
- The three countries condemned in the strongest terms the attempted targeting of Makkah and Madinah and praised Saudi armed forces' vigilance and readiness against ongoing attacks on cities and civilian and economic facilities.
- General Nauman Mahmood (Retd.) of Pakistan was appointed the Makkah Alliance's first secretary-general for a three-year term, marking a step in the pact's institutional development.
- The meeting came as Yemen's Saudi-led coalition launched a major military campaign on Sunday to recapture territory held by the Houthis.
Why it matters: The Makkah pact has moved from paper to practice: the three countries now have a political-defense committee, a standing secretary-general, and a collective-defense trigger language — but the absence of a deployment timeline and the refusal to name the Houthis signal the allies want a credible deterrent without committing to a direct confrontation yet.
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