Houthi advances in Yemen and attacks on Saudi infrastructure have brought an immediate test for the kingdom’s defence agreement with Turkey and Pakistan. The partners must turn a promise of collective protection into a response they can sustain.
Saudi Arabia faces a crisis on two fronts. Attacks have disrupted its East–West oil pipeline, while Houthi advances along Yemen’s western coast and onto islands overlooking Bab al Mandab have increased the threat to its Red Sea shipping routes. Renewed missile and drone attacks on Saudi territory are testing the kingdom’s ability to protect its infrastructure and contain the conflict.
That escalation has given immediate significance to the defence agreement Saudi Arabia signed with Turkey and Pakistan on August 7. The three governments pledged to regard an armed attack on one as an attack on all. Riyadh’s partners must now determine what that promise requires: diplomatic support, stronger defences or participation in a widening war.
The geography matters. As our earlier examination of Saudi Arabia’s alternative oil routes explained, tankers leaving Yanbu for Europe can sail north towards Suez without passing through Bab al Mandab. The usual passage to Asian customers runs south through the threatened strait. Houthi advances do not establish uncontested control of the waterway, but they increase the danger facing an export system already suffering disruption inland.
Pakistan’s defence minister, Khawaja Asif, has said attacks on Saudi Arabia could bring the agreement into operation. Its military spokesman says the three governments will determine their response. Between those statements lies the alliance’s central difficulty: providing enough protection to make its promise credible while retaining control over the scale of its commitments.
The promise and its machinery
The Makkah Agreement for Joint Defence connects Saudi security to two substantial military powers with separate regional interests and other borders to defend. Its published announcement commits the countries to collective deterrence and broader defence cooperation.
The arrangement has begun acquiring institutions. At their August 31 meeting in Istanbul, foreign ministers, defence ministers and military chiefs agreed to establish a secretariat in Saudi Arabia, initially led by a Pakistani secretary general for three years. They also committed to defence industry cooperation, joint technology development and production, and activities intended to improve military cohesion. These provisions appear in the official joint statement.
A permanent staff could give cooperation continuity beyond meetings between leaders. Industrial collaboration could make the relationship more durable by connecting procurement, maintenance and production. Both would help turn diplomatic intentions into practical arrangements.
But the public statements do not disclose a complete operational settlement. They identify neither a standing combined force nor the precise assistance each government must provide. The full treaty text and any military annexes were not available for this account.
The published commitment therefore does not establish automatic troop deployments, an integrated command or a nuclear guarantee. These are consequential distinctions when the next decision may involve authorising military personnel to fight.
The obligation also runs in every direction. Saudi Arabia is the immediate focus, but the collective defence principle applies equally to Pakistan and Turkey. How Riyadh would respond to a confrontation involving either partner is part of the bargain, even if the present emergency leaves that question in the background.
Three partners, different calculations
For Riyadh, the agreement offers additional sources of protection when the security of commercial infrastructure has become inseparable from national defence. Expensive weapons do not remove the difficulty of protecting dispersed facilities against repeated attacks. Repairing a pipeline addresses an interruption; preventing another strike requires intelligence, defensive coverage and a political strategy extending beyond the damaged site.
Additional partners could help meet those needs while widening Saudi choices. Diversification need not mean abandoning Washington. It can reduce the extent to which a single partner determines the available response.
Turkey brings an industrial relationship with its own commercial momentum. Saudi Arabia’s acquisition agreement for Baykar’s Akinci drones dates to 2023, well before the Makkah pact. The new arrangement builds on existing procurement ties that give Ankara a material stake in Saudi security.
For Turkey, the potential gains include greater influence over regional security and deeper industrial partnerships. A larger role also requires decisions about how much capability to commit abroad, which Saudi objectives to support and how those commitments fit its other obligations.
Pakistan enters from a different position. Its armed forces have served in Saudi Arabia for decades. The agreement formalises a role with deep institutional roots while raising the possibility that longstanding assistance could carry more demanding responsibilities.
The members resist presenting the arrangement as an exclusive bloc. Pakistan’s military spokesman, Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, has described it as complementary to existing relationships and rejected the label of a purely Muslim alliance. Its durability will depend on whether those overlapping relationships remain compatible during a crisis. His reported remarks also make clear that the three governments retain responsibility for deciding their response.
The forces behind the signatures
Pakistan’s Saudi role predates the latest agreements by generations. A 1982 bilateral protocol governs the deputation of military personnel and training. In February 2018, Pakistan’s defence minister told parliament that around 1,600 personnel were already in the kingdom and that more than 1,000 additional personnel had been approved for a training and advisory mission confined to Saudi territory. Radio Pakistan recorded the parliamentary statement.
There is also a history of protection extending beyond instruction. Former US intelligence official Bruce Riedel describes a Pakistani armoured brigade dispatched in 1982 at King Fahd’s request and stationed near Tabuk. Its purpose, in his account, included defending the monarchy against domestic and external threats. His description of it as a “palace guard” concerns the security of the regime; it does not establish a continuous Pakistani role as the royal family’s personal bodyguards. Riedel’s account nevertheless illustrates the depth of the relationship.
Pakistan’s army combines a substantial professional training system with conventional preparation shaped by confrontation with India and experience of counterinsurgency and overseas service. Its educational relationships work in both directions: Pakistani officers have served as instructors at Sandhurst, while its Centre for International Peace and Stability trains peacekeeping personnel. These are tangible foundations for its reputation as a military partner. They do not establish a universal ranking among the world’s armies, or guarantee that experience acquired at home will translate into success in an unfamiliar foreign campaign. Military education exchanges and peacekeeping training provide firmer measures than claims of national superiority.
Its air force offers capabilities beyond combat aircraft alone. Pakistan’s participation in JF 17 production provides an industrial foundation, while airborne warning and control equipment supports threat detection and fighter coordination. Those capabilities could strengthen Saudi defence, but the usable contribution depends on available aircraft, trained crews, maintenance and weapons stocks. It would also require effective coordination with Saudi sensors and command arrangements. The aircraft Pakistan possesses and the force it can spare for sustained overseas operations are different measures. Pakistan Aeronautical Complex and Saab’s account of its airborne warning programme document elements of that capability.
The current deployment may already be substantial. Reuters reported on May 18 that Pakistan had sent 8,000 personnel, combat aircraft and an air defence system, citing five unnamed security and government sources. Pakistani and Saudi authorities did not respond to its requests for comment. In September, Pakistan’s Foreign Office described personnel in the kingdom as serving training and logistical purposes. The accounts differ in timing and emphasis; neither publicly establishes the authority assigned to every deployed unit. The May investigation must be read alongside the September briefing.
Iran cannot be treated as a distant problem
Pakistan’s willingness to support Saudi security has long coexisted with an imperative to avoid lasting confrontation with Iran. Their shared frontier makes instability an immediate security concern. Border commerce and energy cooperation add practical reasons to preserve working relations.
The relationship also contains serious mistrust. In January 2024, Iran and Pakistan exchanged strikes on each other’s territory before moving to restore diplomatic cooperation. By April, their leaders were again committing to joint security efforts and closer economic relations. The sequence demonstrated both the danger of escalation and their determination to contain it. Their subsequent joint statement set out that renewed cooperation.
The relevant precedent is Yemen. In 2015, Pakistan’s parliament backed neutrality in the conflict while retaining support for Saudi territorial security. Contemporary reporting records the distinction.
That policy allowed Islamabad to sustain its Saudi relationship without joining the Saudi led intervention. Preserving relations with Iran mattered alongside concerns about sectarian repercussions at home and the burden of another military commitment.
The Makkah agreement has required renewed reassurance. On August 10, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar briefed his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, on its provisions. Business Recorder’s account documents Islamabad’s effort to explain the arrangement directly to Tehran.
The same tension appears in Pakistani commentary. Writing in Urdu in Jang, Hasan Farooqi described both enthusiasm for collective security and concern that the pact could contribute to confrontation among Muslim states. His column demonstrates domestic anxiety, rather than establishing a concealed purpose behind the agreement.
Islamabad must distinguish between helping Saudi Arabia withstand attacks and joining a campaign with broader objectives. Iran’s relationship with the Houthis complicates that calculation, but does not establish Iranian direction of every Houthi operation.
Deterrence needs an agreed limit
The agreement’s strongest case is that credible protection could discourage attacks and create better conditions for negotiation. Additional surveillance, defensive systems and coordinated diplomacy could improve Saudi security without committing its partners to an indefinite campaign.
Each form of assistance nevertheless creates different responsibilities. Training can remain removed from combat. Operating an interceptor system involves immediate decisions about targets. Protecting shipping requires rules for encounters at sea. Attacking launch sites introduces questions about intelligence, civilian harm, retaliation and the duration of operations.
The partners therefore need compatible objectives and a means of deciding when a mission has succeeded. Otherwise, a limited deployment could acquire new tasks incrementally, without a clear political decision to accept the larger commitment.
Excessive caution carries its own risk. An adversary that expects consultation to produce little assistance may continue testing the protected state. Ambiguity can preserve diplomatic flexibility, but it can also encourage mistaken expectations in both allies and opponents.
Saudi Arabia needs protection it can rely on. Turkey and Pakistan need commitments they can sustain. With attacks continuing and Yemen’s conflict threatening vital routes, the Makkah agreement is already being judged by events. Its real meaning will emerge from the force its members are prepared to use, the objectives they agree to pursue and the limits they can hold.