Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan Sign Islamic NATO-Style Defense Pact Amid Iran War

On Friday Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed a major defense agreement as leaders gathered in the city of Makkah, Saudi Arabia. It seeks to strengthen joint deterrence and expanding defense cooperation, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

It is essentially a NATO-style agreement for the 'Muslim world' - given that it stipulates and formalizes that an armed attack on any of the countries will be treated as an attack against all of them.

Formally called the Makkah Joint Defense Agreement, it "reflects the three nations’ commitment to bolstering their collective security and promoting peace, security and stability in the region and the wider world," SPA reported.

The combined estimated population of these Muslim-majority countries is 380 million people, or according to the high estimates... approaching 400 million.

Al Jazeera comments on the significance of the historic pact as follows:

This is more than a diplomatic get-together and the signing of an agreement.

This essentially puts three of the largest Muslim populations together on the roadmap for joint peace, for deterring any act of aggression against them, for making sure that they are in tune with each other when it comes to intelligence sharing, gathering all of the information that is required, and also enhancing cooperation in all sorts of spheres – whether it’s energy, defence expenditure or manufacturing, among others.

Pakistan brings with it, obviously, its nuclear arsenal, battle-hardened military, and munitions it has been supplying. Turkiye, with its advanced drone and munitions systems, is a NATO member, combined with the economic power of Saudi Arabia.

The three of them combined now present a force that will take this region towards a different security architecture than the one in place over the last few decades, especially in the wake of the Iran war.

Indeed this further formalizes Pakistan's nuclear umbrella for Saudi Arabia, which lacks atomic weapons. Turkey does not have its own nukes either, but plays host to US nuclear weapons as part of NATO. Turkey maintains the second-largest military within the NATO alliance, behind the United States.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia already have a bilateral defense pact, somewhat recently inked, which has lately seen Islamabad deploy 8,000 troops, a ​squadron of fighter jets, and an air defense system to Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi kingdom has lately been subject of sporadic 'retaliatory' attacks from Iran in the context of the war, and has earlier even responded by launching numerous unpublicized strikes on Iran.

And so already on the inking of the historic Makkah Joint Defense Agreement, one of the signatories finds itself (unwillingly) on the front lines of a conflict - given it also plays host to American forces - though isn't necessarily a key, direct participant in it. The Saudis have thus far relied largely on US defenses to protect themselves.

Turkey has opposed Trump's Operation Epic Fury, and is an avowed enemy of Israel - and so this pact will only serve to further distance Saudi Arabia from entering the Abrahama Accords and establishing lasing normalization with Israel.