They’re in it together. On Friday, leaders from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey signed a new defense agreement, which “stipulates that any armed attack against any one of the three states shall be regarded as an attack against them all.” Named for the Saudi city where it was signed, the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement comes as the Iran war threatens to restart and Houthi attacks from Yemen already have, and as Gulf states question the United States’ role as a security provider after Iran’s many drone and missile attacks.
Below, Atlantic Council experts explain what the agreement means—and doesn’t mean—for the three countries.
Saudi Arabia
This agreement is not a NATO-like alliance, and it does not signal a discrete new regional bloc. But that does not mean it is not significant. For Riyadh, this agreement bolsters the country’s leverage as it both copes with an emboldened Iran and confronts the limits of US deterrence in the region. By stitching together a web of partnerships, Riyadh assesses it will be better able to anticipate shifting regional threats than relying on any single partner or bloc. But Riyadh is also leveraging a turbulent period to assert its regional leadership: by hosting the signing of a new security agreement with another regional power broker—Turkey—Saudi Arabia is asserting itself as the face of regional stability at a time when the other major regional powers, Iran and Israel, are seen as destabilizing forces.
It is worth remembering that Saudi Arabia has had a mutual defense agreement with Pakistan since September 2025 and with the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council since 2000. In practice, none of these has translated into the kind of response associated with NATO’s Article 5. While Pakistan and Turkey may mobilize some new security support in response to threats from Iran or the Houthis as a result of the agreement—Pakistan has already sent some troops and air defense to Saudi Arabia—that support is unlikely to be a gamechanger and will be highly context-specific. In particular, Pakistani officials have maintained that their 2025 agreement did not include a nuclear umbrella. The diplomatic edge this agreement provides may prove more impactful than tangible security cooperation: At the beginning of the Iran war, Riyadh was able to leverage its heightened partnership with Islamabad to quietly shape negotiations and manage escalation with Tehran.
This new agreement is also further evidence that Riyadh is abandoning its quest for an Article 5–like security guarantee from Washington. But it should not be seen as a rejection of Riyadh’s partnership with the United States. In fact, it could be consistent with US efforts to recalibrate its own military role in the region and shift from a security guarantor to an integrator.
—Allison Minor is the director of the Project for Middle East Integration with the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East programs. She previously served as US deputy special envoy for Yemen and as director for Arabian Peninsula affairs at the National Security Council.
Pakistan
This agreement further embeds Pakistan in the emerging security architecture of the Middle East. It comes not long after Islamabad finalized a new mutual defense pact with Saudi Arabia, and at a moment when it is taking steps to deepen defense cooperation with other allies in the region, such as Egypt and Jordan.
The agreement also brings Pakistan—with its Muslim-majority population and nuclear weapons capacities—more prestige and influence in the region. This is important for simple public-relations reasons: Pakistani leaders want the world to view their country as a helpful and impactful global player, not as the home to large levels of repression and terrorism. But there are also strategic advantages for Pakistan, given how important the Middle East is to Pakistan’s strategic interests. The region is home to many of its top allies, a significant majority of its hydrocarbon imports, and several million Pakistani expatriates.
Additionally, the agreement can help Islamabad’s relationship with the United States. The Trump administration, which wants to see more burden-sharing from top US allies, will likely look favorably on a pact meant to advance collective regional deterrence with an eye toward Iran. Furthermore, down the road, Pakistan can cite this agreement (like its pact with Saudi Arabia) to the Trump administration as a reminder of its broader utility in the Middle East, should the war end in Iran and Pakistan’s mediation is no longer needed—or if the war explodes anew and Pakistan faces criticism from Washington.
—Michael Kugelman is a resident senior fellow for South Asia at the Atlantic Council, and he writes Foreign Policy magazine’s weekly South Asia Brief.
Turkey
The Mecca Joint Defense Agreement signed by the leaders of Turkey, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia today represents an inflection point in the emerging multipolar order in the Middle East and South Asia.
For Ankara, this broadens an umbrella already opened to allies in Qatar, Syria, and Libya—adding density and massive new resources to what amounts to a Muslim collective defense mechanism. It operationalizes the principle that outside powers should not unilaterally upend or revise regional political orders, a status quo geopolitical principle embraced by all three signatories. Saudi sees important counterweights to Iran and Pakistan to India, but for Ankara adding an economic giant and a nuclear power to its team sharply enhances deterrence against Israel, a neighbor whose leaders increasingly speak of enmity and potential conflict with Turkey. In the wake of last year’s Israeli airstrike on Doha, countries in the region may see the need for collective air defense and other security measures to counter both Iran and Israel.
There will be military operational, defense industrial, and diplomatic advantages that accrue to each country. Turkish defense industries certainly stand to benefit from expanded commercial opportunities. Perhaps most importantly, the Mecca Agreement (and its future potential expansion to other members) affirms Turkey’s place in energy and trade networks between India and Europe, because defense partnerships buttress and mutually reinforce business ties and the type of networks in question.
—Rich Outzen, PhD, is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Turkey Program. He previously served in the US Department of State as both a military and civilian advisor.