Pakistan, Sept. 24 -- Pakistan has appointed retired lieutenant-general Nauman Mahmood as the head of a trilateral defense alliance with Saudi Arabia and Turkiye, the Pakistani foreign ministry said on Wednesday, as the three countries move to deepen security cooperation amid heightened regional tensions. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye signed the Makkah Joint Defense Agreement in August, pledging to treat an armed attack on any one of them as an attack on all three. It followed a separate bilateral mutual defense agreement between Islamabad and Riyadh in Sept. 2025. The full operational provisions of the agreements have not been made public. The alliance held an inaugural meeting of the Strategic Political and Defence Committee, estab...