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Fan Chen

The security pact signed on Friday by three of the world’s most powerful Muslim nations with a vow to enhance collective deterrence remains far from what many are calling an Islamic Nato, according to experts.
The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement between Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf’s top oil exporter, Nato member Turkey and Pakistan, a nuclear-armed South Asian state, would be challenged by diverging strategic interests and weak mutual defence capacity, they said.
The Mecca pact’s statement that an armed attack on any of the three would be viewed as an attack on all was technically similar to the defence principle outlined in Article 5 of the transatlantic security alliance, Turkey’s top diplomat Hakan Fidan said on Saturday.
However, he also stressed that the deal was not directed against Iran or any other country – as long as the pact’s member states were not attacked.
Tehran appears unfazed, describing the Mecca pact – signed amid months of Middle East conflict sparked by the US-Israeli attack on Iran on February 28 – as a response to Israel’s ambitions and declining regional confidence in US security guarantees.


Despite agreeing to resume negotiations, Washington and Tehran have continued to exchange fire. Most recently, both sides have made fresh demands and opposing claims over the Strait of Hormuz, further dimming hopes for a comprehensive deal to end the war soon.
Meanwhile, Iran and its allies have attacked Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, while blockading their energy shipments.
Observers have tempered expectations surrounding the pact, pointing to the numerous previous similar but short-lived attempts to build a sustainable defence alliance in the region.
Tang Tianbo, director of Middle East Economy and Energy Studies under the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said the coalition was “still far from a Nato-style military alliance”.
In an article published on social media, Tang said similar attempts in history were “long on rhetoric and short on action” and had sometimes even deepened divisions instead of fostering unity within the Islamic and Arab worlds.
“While [the agreement] will not bring a definitive order to the Middle East, it may represent the strategic direction that regional nations are currently pursuing,” he added.
The joint defence agreement struck in December 2000 by the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council was also labelled by some as a “Gulf Nato” and did result in several combined military deployments.
However, cooperation efforts stalled in 2017 when several of the member states severed ties with Qatar. The bloc’s response in subsequent crises has remained largely confined to diplomatic statements.
A similar push by the first Trump administration to create an “Arab Nato” called the Middle East Strategic Alliance quickly fizzled out amid acute tensions among the states and a lack of substantive military or financial backing from Washington.
Riyadh hedges its bets
Niu Xinchun, director of the China-Arab Research Institute at Ningxia University, said it was “certainly an exaggeration” to call the Mecca pact an “Islamic Nato”.
In essence, the Riyadh-led initiative was another avenue for Saudi Arabia to hedge its bets, signalling frustration with Washington while recognising that no immediate replacement for the US existed, he said.
Riyadh and Islamabad signed a bilateral defence agreement last September – days after Israel’s first attack on Qatar, which had prompted Egypt to propose a Nato-style Arab defence force that was ultimately blocked by Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
According to Niu, the likelihood of establishing a functional mutual defence through the latest agreement was “extremely slim”, even in relation to Israel, an issue on which the three nations shared substantial common interests.
“Nato’s collective defence relies on a unified command structure and dedicated military forces … These three countries are miles away from achieving anything close to that – they haven’t even taken the first step.”
On Sunday, two days after the Mecca pact was signed, the Iran-backed Houthi group in Yemen claimed responsibility for an attack on Saudi soldiers and an oil refinery in the country’s southwest. Pakistan and Turkey have not responded.


Jesse Marks, founder of Rihla Research and Advisory, a Washington-based consultancy focused on the Middle East, noted that the most difficult hurdle for the pact was that each member prioritised defence against different threats.
Security priorities among the three members diverge sharply in his view: Riyadh focuses on Iran and regional infrastructure threats, Turkey is concerned about Israel, while Pakistan prioritises India, Afghanistan and domestic stability.
“It is highly unlikely that any member would automatically join another’s legacy conflict,” he said, citing economic ties between Saudi Arabia and India, and Pakistan’s reluctance to start a permanent war with its neighbour.
“The question is, what constitutes an attack under the pact? The answer is deliberately vague to provide the optimal degree of manoeuvrability for all three parties.”
According to Marks, the Mecca pact is important for signalling “a shift in how regional actors think about defence”.
But its potential security benefits would only exist on paper without practical military integration and agreed-upon rules of engagement, which take time to build and institutionalise, he stressed.
“If Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan cannot agree in advance on who will fight, where, and under what circumstances, the Mecca pact will endure as political symbolism, while struggling to act as a viable form of collective defence.”


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Saudi-Turkey-Pakistan Mecca pact ‘far from’ Nato-style defence alliance

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (left), Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Mecca on Friday. Photo: AFP

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The defence pact fuelled talk of an “Islamic Nato”. Photo: EPA

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif pictured at their recent meeting in Mecca to discuss the pact. Photo: AFP

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Observers say diverging strategic interests and a weak mutual security capacity will be the main challenges facing the agreement


Observers say diverging strategic interests and a weak mutual security capacity will be the main challenges facing the agreement.


Saudi-Turkey-Pakistan Mecca pact ‘far from’ Nato-style defence alliance

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Observers say diverging strategic interests and a weak mutual security capacity will be the main challenges facing the agreement

Observers say diverging strategic interests and a weak mutual security capacity will be the main challenges facing the agreement