It did not take long after Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed a joint strategic defense agreement in September 2025 for Pakistan’s Minister of Defense Production, Raza Hayat Harraj, to announce that Riyadh, Islamabad, and Ankara had prepared a draft defense agreement following negotiations that lasted nearly a year.
Last week, the Pakistani minister clarified that the potential trilateral agreement is separate from the bilateral Saudi-Pakistani accord.
Commenting on the prospective agreement, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan stressed the need to enhance regional cooperation and trust.
Should the draft evolve into a signed agreement among the parties concerned, observers pose two key questions. First, what are the objectives of the three states from such an arrangement? Secondly, could this prospective framework create new defense equations in the Middle East in particular?
The Importance of the Potential Agreement
The significance of the prospective defense arrangement lies in its unique geopolitical composition: Saudi Arabia as a center of economic, political, and religious gravity in both the Arab and Islamic worlds; Pakistan as a nuclear power; and Turkey as a military-industrial force with the second largest army in NATO.
As such, the “potential alliance” would encompass countries with hundreds of millions of people, diverse deterrence capabilities, and significant geographic depth—factors that qualify it to redraw the map of the region’s balance-of-power.
According to observers, the importance of this arrangement is heightened by the conflicts raging across the Middle East and North Africa, where wars and armed confrontations stretch from the Gaza Strip to Somalia, passing through Sudan, Yemen, Libya, and beyond.
Rising tensions between some of the prospective member states and their adversaries have also increased the need for allies and for the formation of a robust deterrence umbrella.
A Defense Alliance
Dr. Mohammed Saleh Al-Harbi, a researcher in strategic, political, and military studies, believes that the draft defense agreement under discussion among Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey is an indicator of the emergence of long-term strategic cooperation driven by the nature of escalating threats in the 21st century.
In comments to Alhurra, Al-Harbi notes that the arrangement still retains a calculated degree of flexibility, given the absence of a fully institutionalized alliance charter with permanent bodies and binding mechanisms. This, in his view, reflects “a clear desire to keep the level of commitment scalable and adjustable. What we are witnessing is the beginning of a defense-alliance structure, not a closed alliance in its final shape.”
He concludes that the prospective defense arrangement strengthens Saudi Arabia’s position as a regional security pole without undermining the concept of Gulf security.
Meanwhile, Saudi writer and researcher Ahmed Ibrahim argues that the potential defense alliance reflects a fundamental shift in the Kingdom’s position within regional and international security equations. Riyadh, he says, is no longer operating from a posture of seeking protection, but rather as an active player contributing to the creation and preservation of stability.
Ibrahim likens this “new trajectory” to the construction of a new security architecture in the Middle East—one “led by Saudi Arabia as it transitions from reactive policies to strategic initiative.”
Regarding the intended target of the prospective arrangement, Ibrahim stresses that “modern Saudi security doctrine is not based on manufacturing adversaries, but on filling strategic vacuums and preventing imbalances.” He explains that “at its core, the alliance is directed against instability, regardless of its source. It functions as a comprehensive deterrence tool to protect global energy corridors, ensure maritime security, and prevent the imposition of unilateral dominance over the region.”
Ibrahim further emphasizes to Alhurra that the GCC structure remains a framework for local integration, while the trilateral alliance would provide broader strategic depth. He concludes that “if completed, this arrangement would throttle conflicts, recalibrate regional escalation calculations, grant Saudi Arabia advanced autonomy in military and industrial decision-making, and serve as a security belt for its interests—sending a clear message that the balance of power in the region is undergoing a structural transformation.”
Sakina Abdallah
A Saudi writer, researcher, and TV presenter
