Pakistan to lead new Saudi-Turkey defence pact secretariat for three years

Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey agreed to establish a Secretariat in Saudi Arabia to oversee the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, with Pakistan slated to provide the first secretary-general for an initial three-year term. The pact, modeled on collective security arrangements, envisions an attack on any signatory as an attack on all, and the Secretariat will coordinate decision-making through a ministerial committee plus political and military committees, likely headquartered in Saudi Arabia. The first meeting establishing the Secretariat reaffirmed plans to strengthen defence cooperation, joint technology development, and industrial collaboration, while emphasizing de-escalation and peaceful crisis resolution. Pakistan’s leadership of the secretariat for three years signals a concrete operational step to implement the agreement and improve trilateral coordination with Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Analysts describe the arrangement as a major shift in Middle Eastern geopolitics, reflecting a broader push for regional security arrangements beyond Western alliance structures. The move could potentially broaden the pact to include additional countries as the founding members expand the coalition.