International Institute for Middle East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES)[1], based in Ljubljana, Slovenia, regularly analyzes developments in the Middle East, the Balkans, and other regions worldwide. In his article, “The Makkah Agreement and the New Security Architecture of the Middle East,” General (Retd.) Corneliu Pivariu provides a timely and analytically nuanced assessment of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement. He argues that the agreement should not yet be characterized as an “Islamic NATO,” but rather understood as an emerging form of flexible, multipolar regional security architecture founded on strategic complementarity and redundancy.
“In a multipolar world, security is no longer underwritten by a single guarantor; it is built through the prudent layering of alliances, interests and capabilities.«
The signing of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement by Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan on 7 August 2026 represents more than the formalisation of military cooperation that has developed gradually over recent years. By stipulating that an armed attack against any one of the three states shall be regarded as an attack against them all, the document introduces an explicit principle of collective defence into a strategic space that has so far failed to build a coherent and durable regional security architecture.[2] The choice of Makkah as the venue for the signing amplifies the political and symbolic significance of the moment: three of the most influential states in the Muslim world are declaring their readiness to transform political solidarity and bilateral cooperation into a shared commitment to deterrence.
The agreement comes at a time when the region is being shaped by widening conflicts, attacks on the territory and energy infrastructure of the Gulf states, confrontation between the United States and Israel on the one hand and Iran and its allies on the other, and increasingly evident doubts about the sufficiency of external security guarantees. For Saudi Arabia, the vulnerability of its oil infrastructure and export routes threatens not only national security but also the economic transformation envisaged by Vision 2030. For Türkiye, regional instability, the rise of non-state actors and the deterioration of relations with Israel require an expansion of its strategic autonomy. For Pakistan, the agreement offers an opportunity to consolidate its influence beyond South Asia and to capitalise on a security relationship with Saudi Arabia built over decades.
The rapprochement among the three states was quickly presented as the emergence of an “Islamic NATO”. The phrase captures the political force of the collective-defence clause, but it risks distorting the agreement’s true nature. At least for the time being, there is no public information about the establishment of an integrated military command, the existence of joint forces, automatic intervention procedures, standing operational plans or predetermined military contributions. The summit’s joint statement is public, but the agreement’s full legal text and activation mechanisms have not been disclosed. Moreover, Saudi and Turkish officials have stated that the document is not intended to create a military axis or a religious bloc and does not replace existing bilateral and multilateral commitments.[3]
The deeper significance of the Makkah Agreement should therefore be sought not in the immediate emergence of an organisation comparable to NATO, but in the changing security logic of the region. Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan are neither abandoning their traditional partnerships nor detaching themselves from the major powers with which they cooperate. They are seeking to add a further regional guarantee to their external relationships, built on the complementarity of Saudi financial resources, Turkish military and technological capacity, and Pakistani strategic experience. The agreement thus marks a shift from dependence on a single guarantor to strategic redundancy: the layering of several partnerships and security mechanisms so that the vulnerability created by the weakening of one may be offset by the strengthening of the others.
From this perspective, the Makkah Agreement is not merely a response to the current regional crisis. It may become the nucleus of an alliance suited to a multipolar world: flexible, interregional, built among middle powers and compatible, at least for now, with the members’ different strategic affiliations and partnerships.
The Makkah Agreement does not create the relationship among the three states from scratch; rather, it brings together within a common framework three strands of cooperation that had already developed. The most firmly established is the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, built over several decades through military training, technical assistance and a Pakistani presence on Saudi territory. The Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement signed by the two countries in September 2025 had already introduced the principle that aggression against either state would be considered aggression against both.[4] The Makkah document extends this logic by including Türkiye and transforms a bilateral guarantee into a trilateral mechanism of considerably greater regional weight.
Relations between Türkiye and Pakistan also have a consolidated military dimension, including training, naval and aeronautical cooperation, and industrial projects. The rapprochement between Ankara and Riyadh is more recent and follows a period of pronounced political rivalry. Their reconciliation has been accompanied by growing economic and military cooperation, including the acquisition and localisation in Saudi Arabia of Turkish unmanned systems, as well as agreements on munitions, sensors and technology transfer.[5] The Makkah Agreement thus anchors at the strategic level a rapprochement already visible in the economic and industrial spheres.
The potential strength of the new framework derives from the participants’ complementarity. Saudi Arabia brings financial resources, energy influence and centrality in the Arab and Muslim worlds. Türkiye possesses the most developed defence-industrial base of the three states, significant conventional capabilities and operational experience accumulated in several regional theatres. Pakistan contributes the size of its armed forces, experience in crisis management and strategic capabilities.
This complementarity should not, however, be turned into an idealised picture. The three states do not have identical interests. Türkiye seeks strategic autonomy and an expansion of its influence; Saudi Arabia wants to protect its territory, energy infrastructure and modernisation project; Pakistan must continue to prioritise its balance with India and the security of its western border. The agreement does not eliminate these differences. It seeks to create a space in which the three powers’ distinct resources can be brought to bear in concert when threats require it.
The importance of the Riyadh-Ankara-Islamabad triangle therefore lies not in the simple addition of military forces, but in the possibility of connecting Saudi capital, Turkish technology and Pakistani military capacity within a regional defence ecosystem. Whether this possibility becomes an actual capability will depend on the consultation, planning and decision-making mechanisms the states establish.
The agreement’s immediate function is to strengthen deterrence. The formula whereby an armed attack against one signatory shall be regarded as an attack against them all increases uncertainty for a potential aggressor: the consequences of an action can no longer be calculated solely in relation to the targeted state, but must also take into account the possibility that the other two powers will become involved.
The context in which the agreement was signed inevitably points to Iran and Iran-associated armed actors as a central concern. Attacks on the Gulf states, threats to energy routes and the activity of armed groups in Yemen and Iraq have exposed the vulnerability of a regional architecture based primarily on external guarantees. Yet it would be excessive to reduce the agreement to the construction of an anti-Iranian front. Türkiye and Pakistan have their own relationships with Tehran and are more interested in limiting the spread of the conflict than in turning it into a generalised regional confrontation. At the same time, intensified Israeli military action and the deterioration of relations between Ankara and Tel Aviv introduce a second implicit area of concern. The agreement, however, does not officially identify either Iran or Israel as an adversary, and this ambiguity is deliberate.[6]
The most sensitive issue is Pakistan’s nuclear status. The participation of the Muslim world’s only nuclear power inevitably casts a “nuclear shadow” over the agreement. Even in the absence of an explicit guarantee, adversaries will have to include in their assessments the possibility of an escalation involving Pakistan. This uncertainty can reinforce political deterrence, but it should not be confused with the formal extension of Pakistan’s nuclear umbrella to Saudi Arabia and Türkiye. Official statements have rejected any link between the agreement and nuclear ambitions or an arms race, while Islamabad has avoided claiming that its arsenal would automatically guarantee its partners’ security.
The pact’s credibility will therefore depend first and foremost on conventional capabilities and political will. Deterrence is produced not simply by stating a commitment, but by convincing an adversary that it will be honoured. Unless rapid consultation procedures, advance planning, interoperability and ready-to-use capabilities are established, the collective clause may remain a political signal rather than a military guarantee. The first major crisis in which one of the signatories requests support from the others will be the true test of the Makkah Agreement.
The consequences of the agreement extend beyond relations with Iran and must be considered in relation to the principal centres of power involved in the Middle East and South Asia. For the United States, the new arrangement reflects both the limits of the current security architecture and the regional allies’ desire to assume a greater share of responsibility for their own defence. Saudi Arabia is not abandoning its strategic partnership with Washington, Türkiye is not leaving NATO, and Pakistan is maintaining channels of cooperation with the United States. What is changing is the de facto exclusivity of the Western guarantee.
The comparison with NATO is inevitable, but it must be kept within rigorous limits. The formula of an attack against one being considered an attack against all reproduces the political principle of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. Yet even Article 5 does not require an identical and automatic military response; each ally is to take such action as it deems necessary.[7] The essential difference is that NATO has a permanent political and military structure, an integrated command, joint planning, interoperability standards and procedures consolidated over more than seven decades. For now, the Makkah Agreement expresses a political commitment to collective defence, not the existence of a comparable military organisation.
For India, Türkiye’s accession to an agreement that includes Pakistan and Saudi Arabia raises more sensitive questions. New Delhi must assess whether the new clause might be invoked in an Indo-Pakistani crisis and to what extent its economic partnership with Riyadh might constrain Saudi solidarity with Islamabad. The undefined nature of the obligations allows each party some freedom of interpretation, but it does not eliminate the agreement’s political effects on the South Asian balance.
China occupies a different position. It is Pakistan’s principal strategic partner, has extensive economic relations with Saudi Arabia and cooperates with Türkiye despite existing disagreements. Beijing may view the emergence of a regional architecture that reduces exclusive dependence on the West favourably, provided that it does not affect Chinese economic projects or generate an escalation that threatens energy corridors. China is neither a member nor a guarantor of the new arrangement, but its relations with all three states give it indirect influence over the arrangement’s evolution.
The Makkah Agreement should therefore not be framed as a simple opposition between the West and the Muslim world, or between the United States and China. The three participating states simultaneously belong to different strategic networks. Türkiye is a NATO member, Pakistan is a strategic partner of China, and Saudi Arabia maintains strong security relationships with the United States and the Gulf monarchies. The novelty of the agreement lies precisely in its capacity to connect these different affiliations.
Over recent decades, security in the Middle East has been organised predominantly around the United States military presence and Washington’s bilateral relationships with its principal partners. This system is not disappearing, but it is becoming insufficient for states that perceive threats as faster-moving, more diverse and less predictable. Missile and drone attacks, the actions of non-state groups, the vulnerability of energy infrastructure and the political hesitation of external guarantors have prompted regional powers to seek additional mechanisms.
The Makkah Agreement expresses a shift from dependence to strategic redundancy. Under this logic, a state does not replace one alliance with another; it layers several guarantees so that the weakening of one does not bring about the collapse of its entire security system. Saudi Arabia combines its American partnership, the Gulf Cooperation Council framework, the strategic relationship with Pakistan and the new trilateral association. Türkiye complements its NATO membership with its own network of regional and industrial relationships. Pakistan adds to its cooperation with China and its traditional relationship with Saudi Arabia an institutionalised platform that connects it directly to the Middle East and the Mediterranean.
The advantage of such an arrangement lies in flexibility. States can deepen cooperation without abandoning existing partnerships or subordinating themselves to a single centre of power. Its limitation derives from the same flexibility: the absence of detailed obligations can facilitate political adaptation but reduce the predictability of a military response. Redundancy enhances security only if the overlapping relationships reinforce one another; if they transmit contradictory signals, it can create uncertainty for partners and adversaries alike.
The industrial dimension could transform the agreement from a political commitment into an enduring association. Saudi capital, Türkiye’s research and production capabilities, and Pakistan’s military experience could support the joint development of drones, munitions, air-defence systems, and command-and-control technologies. Important precedents already exist for cooperation and the localisation of Turkish military production in Saudi Arabia.[8] Yet such projects should not be treated as automatic outcomes of the agreement: they will depend on financing, technology transfer, the protection of sensitive information and the harmonisation of operational requirements.
Prospects for expansion became more concrete on 8 August, when Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said he expected Egypt to join at a later stage once several technical issues had been resolved. He described Cairo as a “natural partner on all issues” and said that the four states already acted “as if [they] were alliance members”. This is politically significant, but it should not be treated as confirmation of Egyptian accession: Fidan expressed Ankara’s expectation, while no formal Egyptian commitment has yet been made public. Egypt’s eventual inclusion would substantially increase the pact’s Arab, African and maritime weight, bringing in the most populous Arab state, one of the region’s largest armed forces and the country controlling the Suez Canal. At the same time, enlargement would make threat definition, consultation and decision-making more complex. Expansion could therefore broaden the pact’s strategic reach while simultaneously testing its still-unproven institutional cohesion.[9]
The first developments after the signing do not justify a triumphalist interpretation. On 7 August, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella designation used by Iran-aligned factions, announced that it was postponing a planned response to recent US-Saudi strikes. The announcement followed an appeal by Hadi al-Amiri and other political interventions, while Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi assured the Saudi intelligence chief that Iraqi territory would not be used to launch attacks against another state.[10] The timing may suggest that the new agreement added weight to the militias’ risk calculations, but the available evidence does not establish a direct causal link. Iraqi political mediation and government pressure were already at work, and the armed factions did not identify either the intended target or the nature of their planned response.
Two days later, the limits of any claim to immediate deterrence became equally visible. Yemen’s Houthi movement claimed a drone attack on Saudi Aramco’s Jazan refinery. The resulting fire was extinguished and no injuries were reported, but neither Türkiye nor Pakistan had publicly indicated how it might participate in a Saudi response.[11] The episode demonstrates that the agreement did not immediately prevent low-cost proxy attacks and that its operational mechanisms, thresholds and division of responsibilities remain undefined.
Taken together, the Iraqi postponement and the Jazan attack support a cautious conclusion. The agreement may already influence perceptions and raise the potential cost of escalation at the margins, but its deterrent value remains unproven. Only the signatories’ conduct in a crisis that requires consultation, attribution, an explicit request for support and a concrete allocation of military or political contributions will show whether Makkah created a usable security mechanism or merely a significant diplomatic signal.
The Makkah Agreement does not yet establish an “Islamic NATO”. There is no public evidence of an integrated command, permanent joint forces, mandatory response procedures or collective planning comparable to that of the North Atlantic Alliance. The label may convey the symbolic impact of the collective-defence clause, but it does not describe the current level of institutionalisation.
The agreement’s importance lies elsewhere. For the first time, three Muslim powers with complementary strategic resources are establishing an explicit link among their national security interests. Saudi Arabia provides capital and regional centrality, Türkiye conventional and technological capacity, and Pakistan military experience and strategic weight. Together, they could form the nucleus of a deterrence system with Arab, Anatolian and South Asian dimensions.
The agreement does not mark the three states’ departure from their traditional partners, but their adaptation to an order in which no external guarantor is considered sufficient. The new architecture rests on overlapping alliances, selective partnerships and the freedom of regional powers to cooperate simultaneously with different centres of power. It is an arrangement characteristic of multipolarity: less rigid than the alliances of the previous century, but also more difficult to anticipate and control.
The document’s real value will be determined not by the solemnity of its signing but by what follows: consultation mechanisms, joint planning, intelligence exchange, interoperability, industrial projects and, above all, the conduct of the signatories in the first crisis. If the political commitment is transformed into a credible capacity for action, the Makkah Agreement could become one of the landmarks of the region’s new security order. If not, it will remain a powerful symbol, but one insufficient to alter the strategic balance.
In either case, its message is already clear: regional powers are no longer waiting for the security architecture to be built exclusively by the great powers. They are beginning to build it themselves.
ANNEX
Joint Statement of the Makkah Al-Mukarramah Summit for Joint Defence
At the gracious invitation of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the President of the Republic of Türkiye, H.E. Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, H.E. Mr. Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, paid a visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, on 24 Safar 1448H, corresponding to August 7, 2026.
His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince and Prime Minister received H.E. the President of Türkiye, and H.E. the Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, at Al-Safa Palace in Makkah, where the Makkah Al-Mukarramah Summit for Joint Defence was held, during which the distinguished relations between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Republic of Türkiye and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan were reviewed, along with a number of issues of mutual interest.
Guided by the longstanding historical ties among the three States, based on the enduring bonds of brotherhood and Islamic solidarity that unite them, and building upon their shared strategic interests and longstanding defence cooperation, His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia, H.E. Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, President of the Republic of Türkiye, and H.E. Mr. Muhammed Shehbaz Sharif, Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, reflecting the three States’ shared commitment to further strengthening their collective security and to promoting peace, security, and stability in the region and beyond, in pursuit of a secure and prosperous future.
The Agreement is intended to strengthen collective deterrence against any act of aggression, and stipulates that any armed attack against any one of the three States shall be regarded as an attack against them all. It further provides for the enhancement of all aspects of defence cooperation among the three States.
Note: As of the date this article was submitted for publication, the full text of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement had not been officially released. The text above reproduces the joint statement issued after the summit and should not be confused with the agreement’s legal text.
Makkah, 7 August 2026
Official source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Pakistan, “Makkah Al-Mukarramah Summit for Joint Defence”, 7 August 2026. Official English text.
About the author:
Corneliu Pivariu is a highly decorated two-star general of the Romanian army (Rtd). He has founded and led one of the most influential magazines on geopolitics and international relations in Eastern Europe, the bilingual journal Geostrategic Pulse, for two decades. General Pivariu is a member of IFIMES Advisory Board.
The article presents the stance of the author and does not necessarily reflect the stance of IFIMES.
Ljubljana/Brașov, 10 August 2026
[1] IFIMES - International Institute for Middle East and Balkan Studies, based in Ljubljana, Slovenia, has a special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council ECOSOC/UN in New York since 2018, and it is the publisher of the international scientific journal "European Perspectives." Available at: https://www.europeanperspectives.org/en
[2] “Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan Issue Joint Statement of the Makkah Al-Mukarramah Summit for Joint Defence”, Saudi Press Agency, 7 August 2026, official summit statement.
[3] Timour Azhari, Ariba Shahid and Tuvan Gumrukcu, “Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan pledge mutual defence as Middle East turmoil escalates”, Reuters, 7 August 2026; officials stated that the agreement was defensive, was not directed against any particular state and did not supersede existing commitments.
[4] “Joint Statement Issued Following Pakistan Prime Minister’s State Visit to the Kingdom”, Saudi Press Agency, 17 September 2025.
[5] “Saudi and Turkish Companies Ink Agreement and Two MoUs to Localize Drone Industry”, Saudi Press Agency, 7 August 2023.
[6] Timour Azhari, Ariba Shahid and Tuvan Gumrukcu, “Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan pledge mutual defence as Middle East turmoil escalates”, Reuters, 7 August 2026.
[7] “The North Atlantic Treaty”, Article 5, NATO, 4 April 1949.
[8] Suzan Fraser and Munir Ahmed, “Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan have signed a key defense agreement”, Associated Press, 7 August 2026; the cited analysis suggests that industrial coordination and technology transfer are more likely than large-scale military deployments.
[9] Hakan Fidan, interview with Anadolu Agency, 8 August 2026, reported in “Regional four-country platform including Egypt to remain ‘very important’: Turkish foreign minister”, Anadolu Agency, 9 August 2026; “Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia defence pact technically same as NATO’s Article 5, Turkish minister says”, Reuters, 8 August 2026.
[10] “Iraqi PM, Saudi intelligence chief discuss regional security as militias delay response”, Reuters, 7 August 2026; Institute for the Study of War and Critical Threats Project, “Iran Update Evening Special Report: August 07, 2026”.
[11] “Yemen’s Houthis attack Saudi refinery after kingdom signs defence pact”, Reuters, 9 August 2026.
