Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan’s Mecca Joint Defence Agreement can give the three countries additional defence options, but analysts say it is not a replacement for the United States’ security role in the region.
Signed in Mecca 10 days before US President Donald Trump praised the deal, the pact says an armed attack on one member will be regarded as an attack on all three. However, assistance would depend on a member requesting help and specifying whether it needs intelligence, logistics or troops.
Why the pact was formed
Trump has spent the past year pressing US allies to contribute more to their own defence. At NATO’s summit in The Hague in June 2025, members agreed to raise their defence-spending target from 2 percent of gross domestic product to 5 percent by 2035 after pressure from Trump.
Analysts differ over whether the Mecca agreement reflects a US retreat. Betul Dogan-Akkas of Ankara University said Gulf states were seeking to rebuild deterrence without relying on Washington after the US and Israel launched their war on Iran on February 28 without consulting US Gulf allies. Umer Karim of the King Faisal Center said the United States would remain in the region, but with local partners expected to contribute more.
Related coverage: Inside the Mecca defence pact’s combined military strength.
What each member gains
For Turkiye, the agreement is also about regional status. Dogan-Akkas said Ankara’s main strategic gain was to demonstrate that it can act as a security provider rather than a security consumer. Gokhan Ereli of Istanbul’s Ibn Haldun University described the approach as a hedge that is “not anti-American so much as post-dependent”.
The pact is a new institutional arrangement in the region, according to Karim, who compared its significance with the earlier Baghdad Pact, later renamed the Central Treaty Organization. That Cold War alliance included Turkiye, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq and the United Kingdom, had US backing without full US membership, and collapsed in 1979 after Iran’s revolution.
Why it does not replace Washington
The agreement’s mutual-defence language is modelled on NATO’s Article 5, but it does not automatically require members to enter one another’s wars. Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the state under attack must first request assistance and identify the type of support it needs. Analysts also say each country can determine the timing, scale and nature of any military help.
More context: What the Türkiye-Pakistan-Saudi defence pact includes.
The pact therefore adds a layer of deterrence rather than replacing existing capabilities. Its limits are especially clear when compared with the roughly 50,000 US troops stationed across the region. Karim said the practical value of the arrangement will depend on the threat, the countries’ resources, available platforms and the extent of their trilateral coordination.
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