New Delhi, Sept. 28 -- The much hyped and over-publicised Makkah Trilateral Defence Pact signed recently by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye seems to be struggling to find its feet as its first test on the ground failed to take off amid fresh Houthi territorial gains in Mocha, causing a severe setback to Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Pakistan is believed not to have acceded to the Saudi request for military intervention to aid it.
Also, on its part, the US offered intelligence rather than military aid when Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sought military assistance from President Donald Trump on September 10 to help fight Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis, amid reports of the Houthis stepping up their threat to the Red Sea. Trump held at least two phone conversations with the Saudi leader but did not agree to the US striking the Houthis, according to a Reuters report. Therefore, the latest defence pact, as of now, looks to be under immense strain.
Meanwhile, Riaz Khokhar, a Research Officer with the Institute of Regional Studies (IRS), Islamabad, has articulated his professional views in an opinion piece in Al Jazeera. The repeated attacks against Saudi energy, civil and defence facilities, combined with the maritime blockade by Iran and the Houthis, also directly raise the question of the Makkah Pact's operationalisation between the three signatories. According to him, the three countries have since established a joint secretariat, with its headquarters in Riyadh, with Pakistan taking the chairmanship for an initial three-year term.
The pact now remains in a gestation period. It does not publicly identify the thresholds or scenarios under which a member would move to direct military intervention. Its organisational and institutional structure, including rules of engagement, mechanisms of consultation, and collective defence and deterrence, are yet to be formally developed. Reverting to the question of how the pact will be operational if a member state is attacked, Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said earlier this week that an unprovoked aggression against Saudi Arabia, or a spillover of the Yemen conflict into the kingdom, would make the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement operational. Asif, however, did not share specific details on what shape that operationalisation would take. Last month, Turkiye's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan clarified that the Makkah Pact would work the same way as NATO: if a member state is attacked, it must actively request and define the specific type of help it needs.
In the meantime, diplomatic efforts have intensified, with Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud talking to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Islamabad has also publicly urged Iran to rein in the Houthis from attacking Saudi Arabia and threatening the Bab al-Mandeb, and has reminded Tehran of Pakistan's commitment to Riyadh's defence through the pact. Ankara would likely play its own part in diplomatically restraining the Houthis and Iran. If diplomacy fails and Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia or the Bab al-Mandeb continue, Turkiye and Pakistan may expand the air and technological support they already provide. Islamabad already has an air squadron of about 16 JF-17 Thunder multirole aircraft, defence systems and thousands of troops deployed in Saudi Arabia.
But a direct military operation by Pakistani forces inside Yemen, as per the assessment of Riaz Khokhar, remains unlikely at this moment. Pakistan would be wary of joining a war against Iran and its allies, given the risks to domestic security, sectarian stability and its western border provinces. Building domestic consensus for direct attacks on the Houthis or confrontation with Iran would also be difficult.
The likely scenario, therefore, is that Pakistan would increase joint diplomatic pressure on Iran to restrain the Houthis, further augment its support for Saudi defence and push for a multinational naval coalition to secure the Bab al-Mandeb. Such restraint could preserve the essence of the Makkah Pact while supporting regional de-escalation. The security architecture it envisages will take time to mature. Until mechanisms for collective response are established, direct Pakistani military intervention remains remote, limiting the pact's effectiveness on the ground.
It is also pertinent to mention that Pakistan is thought to have ruled out any further expansion of the Makkah Pact, principally in terms of inducting a new signatory. Bangladesh, in this context, may have to wait in case it is aspiring to join the deal.
Views expressed are personal. The writer is a retired IPS officer, Adviser NatStrat
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.