Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey sign joint defense agreement in Mecca

Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey signed a trilateral joint defense agreement on August 7 in Mecca, bringing together three of the Muslim world’s most formidable military powers under a single security framework. The pact was signed in the presence of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and Pakistani Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir. The agreement builds on the Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed on September 17, 2025, effectively upgrading a bilateral arrangement into something considerably more ambitious by folding in NATO’s second-largest military. What the pact brings together Turkey fields one of NATO’s most capable conventional forces. Pakistan is a nuclear-armed state with deep institutional military experience. Saudi Arabia commands the largest defense budget in the Gulf and serves as a dominant economic force across the region. Roughly 1,500 to 2,000 Pakistani military personnel are already stationed in Saudi Arabia, a reminder that defense cooperation between Islamabad and Riyadh has deep operational roots, not just diplomatic ones. Negotiations fo...