Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan Sign Joint Defense Deal
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- Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan will sign a joint defense agreement in Mecca on Friday after nearly a year of negotiations, cementing a Sunni Muslim power alignment with the US amid regional turmoil.
- Saudi Arabia has been under direct fire from three directions since the war began on February 28 — Iran, Yemen's Houthis, and Shi'ite militia in Iraq — exposing security vulnerabilities and drawing big questions over the reliability of its long-standing US security umbrella.
- Pakistan has deployed roughly 8,000 troops, fighter jets, drones, and an air-defence system to Saudi Arabia, and is pursuing negotiations with Kuwait over an expanded pact tied to energy cooperation and investment.
- The three countries bring asymmetric strengths: Turkey holds NATO's second-largest military, Saudi Arabia is home to Islam's holiest sites and one of the world's top oil exporters, and Pakistan is the only nuclear-armed Muslim country.
- An existing Saudi-Pakistani mutual defense pact already treats an attack on either as an attack on both and encompasses "all military means," though Pakistan has so far preferred to mediate with Iran rather than join the war militarily.
- In 2023, Riyadh agreed to buy Turkish drones in what Ankara called its largest defense export contract, and Turkey and Pakistan have a long-running exchange of warships and training aircraft.
Why it matters: The pact formalizes a Sunni defense bloc at a moment when Saudi Arabia — under fire from three directions — is openly questioning its US security umbrella's reliability. Pakistan's 8,000 troops already in the kingdom gain a multilateral framework, though Islamabad has so far preferred mediating with Tehran over joining the war militarily.
