Sam Hamad
The New Arab / August 7, 2026
Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan’s new defence pact creates an Article 5-style guarantee, raising major questions for Israel and Iran.
Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed a landmark joint defence agreement in Mecca on Friday containing a collective defence clause similar to NATO’s Article 5 under which an armed attack against any one of the three countries will be regarded as an attack against them all.
The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement was signed by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif after nearly a year of negotiations.
Its signing comes amid a regional war that has seen Iranian attacks on Gulf states, growing alarm over Israel’s expanding military footprint and renewed questions over the reliability of the longstanding US security umbrella.
Despite its sweeping collective-defence provision, however, the agreement does not specify what military action each country would be obliged to take if another were attacked.
A Sunni NATO ?
The agreement contains a collective defence commitment, closely resembling the central principle underpinning NATO.
Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty states that an armed attack against one or more NATO members “shall be considered an attack against them all”.
The Mecca pact similarly stipulates that an armed attack against Saudi Arabia, Turkey or Pakistan will be regarded as an attack against all three.
But the comparison has limits.
The Mecca agreement has no publicly disclosed equivalent to NATO’s integrated command structure, joint military planning or mechanisms for coordinating a collective response.
It nevertheless combines considerable and complementary power. Turkey has NATO’s second-largest military, Pakistan is the only Muslim-majority nuclear power, while Saudi Arabia provides significant financial and diplomatic weight.
The pact builds on existing military ties. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed a mutual defence agreement in September 2025, and around 8,000 Pakistani troops, as well as fighter jets, drones and an air-defence system, are deployed in the kingdom.
Turkey and Pakistan have exchanged warships and training aircraft, while Riyadh is a major purchaser of Turkish drones.
A Turkish official told Reuters the agreement was open to other regional countries, potentially allowing it to develop into a broader security grouping.
However, Saudi Deputy Minister for Public Diplomacy Rayed Krimly rejected suggestions that it represented a military axis or sectarian bloc, adding that it was not linked to “any nuclear ambitions or arms race”.
Why now ?
The agreement has been under negotiation for almost a year, but comes amid a dramatically worsening regional security environment.
Iran and its allies have attacked Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states since the US and Israel launched their war against Tehran in February, while disruption to shipping and energy exports has heightened regional insecurity.
But Iran is not the only source of concern.
Israel has expanded military operations across the region since October 2023, including invading southern Lebanon, seizing Syrian territory and twice launching air campaigns against Iran.
Turkey has strongly backed efforts to rebuild a unified and militarily capable Syrian state following Bashar al-Assad’s fall, putting Ankara increasingly at odds with Israel, which destroyed much of Syria’s remaining military infrastructure following Assad’s collapse and has continued strikes inside the country.
Burcu Ozcelik, senior research fellow for Middle East Security at RUSI, told Reuters the pact was aimed at counterbalancing Iranian regional power while also building deterrence against Israel, rather than preparing for confrontation with Tehran.
Israel, Pakistan and the nuclear question
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on the agreement, but the combination of Turkey and nuclear-armed Pakistan could give it particular significance for Israel.
Israeli officials have increasingly identified Turkey as a potential strategic threat as their interests collide in Syria. Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett went further in February, describing Turkey as “the new Iran” and accusing Ankara of seeking a “hostile Sunni axis with nuclear Pakistan”.
The pact could complicate Israel’s ability to act militarily against its neighbours without considering a wider response.
Ankara wants a strong Syrian central government and military, while Israel has occupied additional Syrian territory since Assad’s fall and repeatedly attacked Syrian military infrastructure.
Pakistan’s participation also raises the question of whether its nuclear arsenal could eventually provide extended deterrence to its partners.
Nothing announced on Friday establishes such a nuclear umbrella. Islamabad previously said nuclear weapons were “not on the radar” regarding its bilateral Saudi pact and did not intervene militarily when Iran subsequently attacked the kingdom.
Nevertheless, any adversary contemplating a major attack on Saudi Arabia or Turkey must now consider that nuclear-armed Pakistan has formally declared an attack on either to be an attack on itself.
How have countries reacted ?
Iran’s government has not formally responded, but Ebrahim Rezaei, a member of parliament’s National Security Committee, sharply criticised the pact.
“The Saudis must understand that an agreement on paper with Turkey and Pakistan will not bring them security, just as years of one-sided hosting of the Americans did not provide it,” he wrote on X.
India’s Foreign Ministry said New Delhi was “closely following” the agreement, given the implications of Pakistan acquiring new collective-defence commitments.
Abdulaziz Sager, chairman of the Gulf Research Center, said the framework could contribute to “a more regionally driven security architecture”.
Whether it does so may ultimately depend on whether other regional states take up the invitation to join.
Sam Hamad is a historian and freelance writer and editor
