Turkish FM Affirms Defense Pact With Pakistan, Saudi Arabia Is Same As NATO's Article 5
World leaders have been reacting to the Friday signing of a major defense agreement between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan in the Saudi city of Makkah among their heads of state. It seeks to strengthen joint deterrence and expanding defense cooperation, the Saudi Press Agency said.
As we reported, it essentially a NATO-style agreement for the 'Muslim world' - given that it stipulates and formalizes that an armed attack on any of the countries will be treated as an attack against all of them.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has on Saturday affirmed this in very clear terms - in case there were any doubts among pundits - describing that is indeed technically the same as NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense agreement.
He told state Anadolu news agency that a committee of ministers similar to that within NATO would be formed to undergird the new alliance, with the establishment of general secretariat based in Saudi Arabia. This will be the tripartite pact's version of Brussels, it seems.
What's more is that "Egypt could potentially join the pact once certain technical matters are resolved," Fidan added.
Some are already seeing in this a kind of 'counter-Abraham accords' but which goes much further, given the military implications.
Will Washington ultimately back it and give its blessing?
Al Jazeera has provided the following commentary saying that the US will be okay with it so long as it does not become 'anti-Israeli' in its intent:
David Des Roches, an associate professor at the National Defense University’s Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, has described the defence pact signed by Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan as a good move that will be welcomed by the US.
“So long as it doesn’t metastasize into some sort of malign anti-Israel thing, which I think is a very remote possibility, I think it’s positive,” he told Al Jazeera.
The alliance would benefit from Turkiye and Pakistan’s robust defence industries, “a more advanced one in the case of Turkey, less advanced, more machine-age in the case of Pakistan”, he said.
Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, could help finance its two allies. “In both countries, the capacity exceeds their ability to pay for it, and they can’t really maintain national defence industries without a market,” said Des Roches.
The analyst added: "So there’s money, there’s markets, and there’s the possibility for advanced training and education. From an American perspective, if our partners have increased capacity, that's burden sharing. And that’s been the aim of successive American administrations since, really, the end of World War II."
But in the context of the US war on Iran, Iranian forces have attacked Saudi Arabia multiple times. If this happens again, would Pakistan and Turkey really directly intervene against Iran in an Article 5 fashion?
This scenario is highly doubtful, and Turkey and Iran even share a border which has long been fraught with tensions of its own, especially related to the Kurdish issue.
The USA claims to have made the agreement between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey, and considers it as it's own achievement. https://t.co/1Ga9txAwGe
— Middle East Observer (@ME_Observer_) August 8, 2026
One thing is certain: this is definitely a Saudi move away from the Abraham Accords which Trump has long pushed for and not toward it. Turkey and Pakistan want to see a clearer divide between Israel and the Saudis and so are only too happy to present it that way.