National Interest

by Burcu Ozcelik and Serhat Erkmen

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    The key question is whether the Turkish-Saudi-Pakistani security agreement merely defends Saudi Arabia from the Houthis or institutes a wider regional order.

    What began on February 28 as a direct US-Israeli confrontation with Iran has increasingly shifted towards the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and now Yemen and Bab el-Mandeb. From July onward, Gulf military bases, international shipping, energy infrastructure and US regional partners became principal targets of Iranian strikes, intensifying pressure on Gulf states to contain the conflict and protect their economic interests.

    Saudi Arabia has emerged as the reluctant, but necessary, driver of efforts to forge a more durable response. The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement is Riyadh’s attempt to reduce its exposure to Iran-linked attacks, strengthen collective deterrence and distribute the burden of defending Saudi territory and regional security. Pakistan occupies an important bridging position within the emerging trilateral framework. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have maintained close political and military ties for decades, as have Turkey and Pakistan. By contrast, Saudi-Turkish relations have been far more uneven, moving repeatedly between competition and cooperation.

    The run-up to the Mecca Pact began after the 12-Day War in June 2025. This direct, unprecedented confrontation marked a consequential shift in the balance of power across a geopolitical and geo-economic arc from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Indian subcontinent. Amid mercurial US priorities, regional states moved to craft a working mechanism for crisis response, management and settlement. The military agreement between Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is the early manifestation of a changing regional security architecture.

    Despite the rallying cries from both champions and critics of the Mecca Pact, it is far too simplistic to claim it spells the irreversible erosion of the United States’ role as the Middle East’s traditional security provider, let alone proof of an emerging post-American regional order. The security relationships linking the United States to many of its traditional partners remain substantial. What has changed is how much regional states can assume the United States will bear primary responsibility for managing every crisis.

    Instead, unprecedented volatility in the Middle East, debates over US security guarantees and Washington’s longstanding preference for greater regional burden-sharing have encouraged the region’s heavyweights—or aspiring Middle Powers—to develop indigenous mechanisms to protect their interests from within the region.

    The Mecca Pact is neither an anti-American bloc nor, at least for now, a “Muslim NATO.” Rather, it is a nascent part of a broader effort by regional powers to assume greater responsibility for deterrence and security. In this respect, stronger cooperation among Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is entirely compatible with American strategy, while also reflecting Ankara’s longstanding preference for “regional solutions to regional problems.”

    Each signatory brings different priorities, alliance commitments and threat perceptions to the pact. Yet there is meaningful common ground: an interest in stronger central states, greater coordination on border security and counterterrorism and limiting the destabilizing influence of armed non-state actors. For Turkey, the framework also creates opportunities to expand defense-industrial cooperation through joint production, technology partnerships, procurement and greater military interoperability.

    Before the ink on the Mecca Pact was dry, the Houthis launched a missile attack on Saudi Arabia. When no immediate response followed, critics derided the agreement as something that would remain “on paper,” even a “paper tiger.” Developments since October 5, however, suggest those early assessments underestimated both the agreement’s substance and its potential.

    On the same day that Saudi-backed Yemeni forces launched a new offensive against the Houthis, Turkey and Pakistan moved from declaratory support to practical measures aimed at strengthening Saudi Arabia’s defense. For close watchers, that move gave the pact a degree of operational credibility that its early critics had doubted.

    Pakistan’s longstanding military presence in Saudi Arabia gives Islamabad a solid base from which to maneuver. Meanwhile, Ankara has an established military footprint stretching from Libya and Somalia to Azerbaijan and Syria and has repeatedly demonstrated an ability to deploy forces, sustain operations and work through local and regional partners.

    The pact’s first tangible step toward collective defense involved mobilizing military and technical assistance to protect Saudi Arabia’s critical infrastructure. Reports suggest that Saudi Arabia has already received key Turkish weapons and defense systems, particularly air-defense capabilities, under existing bilateral agreements.

    But the Yemen file is about more than defending Saudi territory alone; the stakes are much higher. Saudi-backed forces’ on-the-ground activities and the evolving balance of power between them and the Houthis will help determine whether the Mecca Pact becomes a primarily defensive mechanism or a broader framework for regional security. The wider context remains the US-Iran confrontation.

    The pact’s members now appear likely to concentrate on three objectives in Yemen: reducing direct threats to Saudi Arabia, constraining the Houthis’ military freedom of action and restoring maritime security along the Red Sea-Bab el-Mandeb corridor. Progress on all three will require more than Turkey’s operational and advisory capabilities, Saudi Arabia’s financial resources and the intelligence and military support Pakistan can provide. A more difficult requirement is manpower. Sustained operations in Yemen will require personnel, weapons, technology and money.

    Enter Syria. President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s visit to Riyadh on October 6, one day after the Mecca Pact activated its collective-deterrence mechanisms, was striking. Reports indicate that on October 7, Saudi Arabia asked Damascus to consider military assistance against the Houthis, with options under discussion ranging from defensive support to the possible deployment of Syrian forces alongside Saudi-backed Yemeni troops. If such cooperation materializes, it would suggest that the emerging security framework around the Mecca Pact may extend beyond its three formal members.

    If the pact navigates its first major test against the Houthis, it could gain significant appeal as a broader regional security framework.

    Iraq could become the pact’s next and much messier, test. As long as the Yemen conflict does not draw in Iran-aligned Iraqi armed groups, the pact’s members are likely to avoid becoming more deeply entangled in Iraq’s already complex security environment. But that calculation could change if Iraqi territory again becomes an important launchpad for attacks on Saudi Arabia, or if armed groups there begin to threaten Turkey’s military presence and interests in northern Iraq. If these forces converge, Iraq could become a second arena testing the pact’s limits.

    For now, none of the three states has an obvious interest in importing the Mecca framework into Iraq’s internal power struggles. Yet Baghdad’s limited ability to exercise effective control over all armed groups means Iraq could still become a theater through which actors hostile to the pact seek to offset gains made elsewhere, including in Yemen.

    A stronger Turkey-Saudi Arabia-Pakistan axis will raise concerns among regional states with competing interests. Partnerships involving countries such as Israel, India and Greece offer one possible example. The region may be entering a new phase in which the success of one security arrangement encourages others to consolidate or adapt in response.

    Ankara will be mindful of the risks of both success and failure. Israel, in particular, will be interested in what Turkish technical assistance to Saudi Arabia reveals about the performance of Turkey’s air-defense systems, drones, electronic-warfare capabilities and intelligence networks against an adversary employing missiles and unmanned systems. Turkish assistance to Riyadh already reportedly includes air-defense systems, drone operators, intelligence and logistical support, turning the Houthi confrontation into a potentially important demonstration of Turkish capabilities under operational conditions.

    For Ankara, the reputational stakes are higher still because Turkey is a NATO member. Any sustained Turkish role in Saudi and Red Sea defense will inevitably be judged against benchmarks of alliance-level interoperability, conventional command standards and operational competence. Success would strengthen Ankara’s claim to be a security provider beyond NATO’s immediate geography and failure (or substantial setbacks) would invite wider scrutiny of Turkish capabilities and of the Mecca framework itself.

    Ankara has little interest in turning the collective defense of Saudi Arabia into a direct confrontation with Iran. It is also likely to be far more cautious about deploying physical combat forces onto Yemeni territory than about providing defensive systems, intelligence, advisers, or maritime support. For Ankara, the maritime space, where Turkish strategic and economic interests already extend through the Gulf of Aden and into Somalia, carries particular strategic and operational weight.

    As the Houthi threat increasingly converges with the security of Bab el-Mandeb and the Red Sea, maritime surveillance, escort, intelligence-sharing and coalition coordination give Turkey a way to make a consequential military contribution while maintaining a clearer distinction between defending Saudi Arabia and joining an offensive war in Yemen.

    The bottom line is that the Mecca Pact does not yet amount to a new regional order. But if it can defend Saudi Arabia, constrain the Houthis and coordinate security across the Red Sea without drawing its members into a wider war, other states will take notice. Whether it succeeds or fails, risks and costs remain and regional actors will draw lessons from both.