![\"mecca-saudi-arabia-07th-aug-2026-turkish-president-recep-tayyip-erdogan-l-saudi-crown-prince-mohammed-bin-salman-c-and-pakistani-prime-minister-shehbaz-sharif-r-sign-a-trilateral-defense-a\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786161745_325_.jpeg\")
\n The three leaders hold up copies of the defence agreement. Alamy Stock Photo<\/p>\n
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LAST UPDATE
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\n 11 hrs ago\n <\/p>\n
SAUDI ARABIA, TURKEY and Pakistan signed a mutual defence pact today in the holy city of Mecca, which sets out that an attack on one of the three countries constitutes an attack against all of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The agreement comes amidst the US-Israeli war against Iran, which has seen Saudi energy infrastructure and airbases hit by missile and drone strikes.<\/p>\n
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan, Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif signed the\u00a0\u201dMecca Joint Defence Agreement\u201d and held up copies of the document for the media this afternoon.<\/p>\n
The Saudi foreign ministry said the agreement \u201cis 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\u201d.<\/p>\n
It also said the agreement \u201cprovides for the enhancement of all aspects of defence cooperation among the three states\u201d.<\/p>\n
\n The three leaders hold up copies of the defence agreement. Alamy Stock Photo<\/p>\n
Alamy Stock Photo\n<\/p>\n
The mutual defence aspect of the deal resembles Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, the basis for the Nato alliance of which Turkey is already a part.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It also follows a similar agreement already reached between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan last September.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s new agreement is likely to anger Israel, whose government has long been at odds with the Turkish government of Erdo\u011fan, who has condemned Israel\u2019s oppression of Palestine for years, and even more so during the genocide in Gaza.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Turkey\u2019s Haberturk television and other media said it is likely to allow joint military exercises and training, technology transfers and the sharing of intelligence.<\/p>\n
It remains to be seen what the new three-way agreement will mean for the ongoing Iran war. This week, the Houthis in Yemen have been attacking ships near Saudi ports and also launching deadly attacks against the Saudi-backed Yemeni government\u2019s forces.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s announcement is also a sign that Saudi Arabia is looking to diversify its security relationships, since its alliance with the United States has not kept it free from attack from Iran and its allies during the current war.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Following the announcement today, Turkey said the agreement was \u201cnot aimed at any particular country\u201d.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia said \u201cthe agreement does not represent an effort to establish a military axis or a sectarian bloc\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cNor is it linked to any nuclear ambitions or arms race, rather it is focused on building sustainable capabilities,\u201d deputy minister for public diplomacy Rayed Krimly said on X.<\/p>\n
The \u201cdoes not constitute a threat to the security of any country in the region\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n
Since the onset of the regional war, Saudi Arabia has grown closer to Turkey, Egypt and Pakistan, which have been pushing for mediation and a resolution to the conflict.<\/p>\n
Umar Karim, an expert on Saudi foreign policy at the University of Birmingham, said the alignment \u201cis clearly oriented towards Iran and meant to address Iran\u2019s new strategic approach which is geared towards dominance of the broader Gulf region\u201d.<\/p>\n
The fact that Turkey and Pakistan border Iran means they could \u201cexercise a different kind of leverage\u201d on Tehran, he added.<\/p>\n
Before the signing, a source close to the Saudi military and government told the AFP news agency that although the agreement had been under discussion for a long time, \u201cthe latest developments in the region expedite it\u201d.<\/p>\n
Andreas Krieg of King\u2019s College London said the deal showed a clear desire to diversify alliances beyond the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cSaudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan are not trying to replace the United States,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are building the capacity to protect their interests when Washington cannot or will not do so.\u201d<\/p>\n
Riyadh, in particular, he added, \u201cwants several layers of security rather than one American umbrella\u201d, after the shock of the Iran war.<\/p>\n
With reporting from AFP and Press Association\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAST UPDATE | 11 hrs ago SAUDI ARABIA, TURKEY and Pakistan signed a mutual defence pact today in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,26271,19,18929,169299,17,71,11,12,15,16,264465,5,2214,15112,7,8,385,384,9586],"class_list":["post-626470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-houthis","tag-ie","tag-iran","tag-iran-war","tag-ireland","tag-israel","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-mecca","tag-news","tag-pakistan","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-turkey","tag-united-states","tag-yemen"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117057903756504601","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}