The Saudi Arabia-Pakistan-Türkiye Defence Pact and the Emerging Role of a New Group of Muslim States

The Emergence of a Group of New Muslim States

The Middle East is a region in which conflicts at multiple levels intersect in highly complex ways, but there are also discernible historical trends. To understand the current situation, it is important to take a broad view of these historical developments.

In the 1990s, following the end of the Cold War and the conclusion of the Gulf War, there was a period symbolised by the Oslo Accords, during which American influence in the region increased dramatically. This situation changed substantially in the twenty-first century, as the United States and Israel became increasingly closely aligned during the War on Terror, generating resentment among Muslim-majority countries. The situations in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon became increasingly unstable in the wake of the Arab Spring, while sectarian divisions intensified across the Middle East.

As Arab states gradually reconciled with Israel and joined the movement towards the Abraham Accords, Iran responded by developing an international network known as the “Axis of Resistance.” In 2023, however, just as Saudi Arabia – the leading power in the Arab world – was widely expected to join the Abraham Accords, Hamas carried out the October 7 terrorist attack, followed by Israel’s devastating military offensive in Gaza. Saudi Arabia’s accession to the Abraham Accords consequently became far more remote, while strains also began to emerge between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which had taken the lead in establishing the Abraham Accords.

Thus, the prospect of a Middle Eastern order centred on Israel and premised upon the authority of a universalist United States had already receded following the failures of the War on Terror and the Arab Spring. Israel subsequently drew closer to Arab states by taking advantage of concerns over sectarian conflict and violent extremism, creating what appeared to be an emerging binary structure between the Abraham Accords camp and Iran’s Axis of Resistance. Yet as Israel came under intense international criticism over the Gaza crisis, countries, most notably Saudi Arabia, increasingly occupied a middle position, aligning themselves with neither Israel nor Iran.

Under these circumstances, Muslim states outside the Middle East that are critical of Israel while maintaining their distance from Iran have become increasingly significant. Among the leading states in this category are Türkiye, Pakistan, and Indonesia.

From the Board of Peace to the Islamabad Memorandum

US President Trump’s role has been strongly emphasised in the mediation efforts that eventually produced a ceasefire agreement in Gaza. Yet the involvement of Muslim countries outside the Middle East – notably Türkiye, Pakistan, and Indonesia – which demonstrated a willingness to cooperate actively with the “Board of Peace,” was also highly significant.

At a meeting held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly September 2025 among countries that would later participate in the Board of Peace, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sat beside President Trump and played a leading role in managing the proceedings. Indonesia attracted particular attention by announcing its readiness to deploy 20,000 personnel to Gaza, backed by its extensive record of participation in UN peacekeeping operations.

Pakistan was also present on that occasion. This year, however, it has assumed an even more prominent role by mediating between the United States and Iran and helping to bring about a ceasefire embodied in the ‘Islamabad Memorandum.’ In reality, Middle Eastern states are themselves too deeply entangled in the region’s complex conflicts to serve easily as neutral third-party mediators. At the same time, states located too far from the region might lack the familiarity and trust required for effective mediation. Pakistan is particularly well placed in this respect: although outside the Middle East, it is a geographically proximate, non-Arab Muslim-majority country, making it a suitable mediator between Iran and the United States.

As Arab states have diversified their positions and some have adopted a more moderate stance, the significance of non-Arab, non-Middle Eastern Muslim-majority countries in Middle Eastern affairs has grown. For a moderate state such as Saudi Arabia, reconciliation with Israel is an unattractive option given domestic and broader Arab public opinion. Meanwhile, the United States has become almost inseparable from Israel in its intense confrontation with Iran, raising doubts about whether Washington can ultimately be relied upon.

Saudi Arabia had already restored diplomatic relations with Iran in March 2023 through Chinese mediation. Yet this does not mean that Riyadh can afford to position itself openly on Iran’s side.

From the SMDA to the Mecca Agreement

One logical way for Saudi Arabia to compensate for this unstable strategic environment is to find allies outside the Middle East. Accordingly, in September 2025, Saudi Arabia concluded the Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA) with Pakistan. The SMDA contains a collective defence provision under which an attack on either country is regarded by the other as an attack on itself. It is reasonable to interpret this as an attempt by Saudi Arabia to obtain the protection of Pakistan’s nuclear umbrella in return for economic benefits.

Through the SMDA, Saudi Arabia acquired a security framework independent of the United States and Israel, while avoiding dependence on Iran. When Iran attacked facilities inside Saudi territory during the US-Israeli war against Iran that began on February 28 this year, Pakistan reportedly deployed approximately 8,000 troops, one squadron of fighter aircraft, and air-defence systems to Saudi Arabia under the SMDA. The agreement has therefore already demonstrated its practical significance as a mechanism involving actual military deployments.

This development naturally brings into focus Saudi Arabia’s security relationship with Türkiye, which occupies a strategically important position on the Middle East’s northwestern flank. Türkiye has hostile diplomatic relations with Israel, while it had also experienced serious tensions with Iran, particularly over Syria. Against this background, the trilateral defence agreement among Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Türkiye – reportedly under diplomatic negotiation since 2025 – has finally materialised.

Institutional Features of the Mecca Agreement

The “Mecca Joint Defence Agreement” among Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan, concluded on 7 August 2026, has a basic structure similar to that of the SMDA. The similarity is most evident in its mutual defence clause. The Mecca Agreement likewise provides that “an attack on one shall be regarded as an attack on all three,” establishing a system of collective self-defence, or mutual defence, among the three states. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan described the arrangement as “technically the same as NATO’s Article 5.”

The principal difference between the Mecca Agreement and the SMDA lies in the degree of institutionalisation. The Mecca Agreement incorporates institutional mechanisms that do not appear to have been included in the SMDA, although uncertainties remain because the full text of the SMDA has not been made public.

The Mecca Agreement provides for regular consultations at the foreign and defence ministerial levels; a ministerial committee responsible for overseeing implementation; a permanent general secretariat based in Saudi Arabia; a mechanism under which the three countries consult on the form and extent of assistance to be provided in the event of an attack; and provisions anticipating the possible admission of additional member states in the future. In this respect, it has characteristics that bring it closer to an institutionalised multilateral collective-defence framework. There have also been reports identifying Egypt as a possible future participant.

This does not, of course, mean that the Mecca Agreement will immediately develop into an organisation like NATO, with a permanent bureaucracy and a continuously operating organisational structure. Developing institutional characteristics is not the same thing as establishing a formal organisation.

The boundary between an institution and an organisation, however, is not always clear. An institution established jointly by several states can have considerable significance even without a clearly defined organisational apparatus. The US-Japan Security Treaty, for example, has no independent secretariat, yet it constitutes an international security institution of enormous importance operated jointly by the United States and Japan.

Türkiye has approximately 350,000 active military personnel, giving it the second-largest armed forces in NATO after the United States and giving it the second-largest armed forces in NATO after the United States and placing its military around sixteenth globally. It has also established a particularly notable presence in the field of drone manufacturing in recent years. Pakistan, with approximately 650,000 military personnel, ranks around seventh globally, ahead of Iran, and is also a de facto nuclear-weapon state. Saudi Arabia, with approximately 250,000 military personnel and ranking around twenty-first globally, possesses enormous financial resources and occupies a leading position in the Arab world.

If these three countries genuinely coordinate their capabilities, they could develop into a formidable third force, comparable in weight to the US-backed Abraham Accords camp on the one hand and Iran’s Axis of Resistance, with its extensive network of non-state actors across the Middle East, on the other.

Implications for the Perspective of Geopolitical Theory

From the point of view of Halford Mackinder’s Anglo-American geopolitical theory, Israel is a kind of wedge inserted by the Sea Power alliance at one of the major bridgeheads between the Eurasian continent and the maritime world, on the Arabian Peninsula. According to Mackinder, the northern part of Iran belongs to the Heartland because of its geographical proximity to the great Eurasian plain. Saudi Arabia, as the dominant occupant of the peninsula, now forms a security alliance with two militarily significant Muslim states in the Rimland, along the periphery of the Eurasian continent. If the confrontation between the Sea Power alliance and the Heartland power had been the exclusively decisive structure in global politics, as in the cases of the Great Game in the nineteenth century and the Cold War in the twentieth century, then this intermediate bloc of Muslim-majority states would not be able to sustain itself because of intervention by one or both of the two camps. However, if the bipolar structure is weakening and a more multipolar structure is emerging even in the Middle East, then, the coalition of the three Muslim states, possibly together with some other like-minded states, could plausibly constitute a distinct regional civilisational zone, as viewed from a modified version of the Continental Tradition of geopolitical theory that emphasises the existence of multiple civilisational regional zones in the world.

We do not know how the trilateral alliance will develop. The Mecca Agreement has, of course, only just been signed. We are therefore hesitant to draw firm conclusions about the implications of its signing for geopolitical theory. Precisely for that reason, however, its evolution deserves close attention.

Disclaimer: Views expressed are of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Statecraft Institute.