Mecca Joint Defence Agreement: Will Saudi and Turkey fight if Pakistan is attacked?

The new defence agreement between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan has raised a difficult question for India: if New Delhi carries out another Operation Sindoor-style strike against Pakistan, would Riyadh and Ankara come to Islamabad's military aid?

The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, signed in Mecca on Friday, says an armed attack against any one of the three countries will be regarded as an attack against all three. The pact also seeks to strengthen defence cooperation and collective deterrence.

But the wording does not automatically mean that Saudi Arabia or Turkey would go to war with India if Indian forces strike Pakistan. The agreement's precise military obligations, including what form assistance would take and who decides how to respond, have not been publicly detailed.

That distinction could become crucial if India and Pakistan enter another military confrontation.

What would happen if India strikes Pakistan again?

The biggest question would be whether an Indian operation is treated by the three countries as an "armed attack" covered by the pact.

During Operation Sindoor, Pakistan received military and diplomatic support from China and Turkey. Experts have, however, said that the pact is more of a regional deterrence than expand the scope of wars.

Asli Aydintasbas, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, said, “The purpose of this agreement is to strengthen deterrence, not necessarily to widen the scope of the war. Turkey and Pakistan will not fight a war against Iran. Both countries see themselves as states that promote stability and want to create the political environment needed for this."

A Turkish official described the pact as "purely defensive" and said it was not directed against any particular country. The official added that the agreement remained open to other regional states and did not replace existing bilateral or multilateral defence arrangements.

Would Turkey attack India?

Ankara openly supported Pakistan during the 2025 India-Pakistan conflict, and analysts have pointed to its longstanding defence relationship with Islamabad.

Brahma Chellaney, a strategic affairs expert, has argued that Turkey's support during Operation Sindoor demonstrated its willingness to back Pakistan during an India-Pakistan conflict.

“Given Turkey's military assistance to Pakistan during India's May 2025 Operation Sindoor — particularly in uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) and electronic warfare — the tripartite alliance carries important geopolitical and strategic implications for India, including greater complexity for deterrence and escalation management in future conflicts. Although China provided substantially greater military assistance to Pakistan during Operation Sindoor, Turkey's direct support underscored Ankara's willingness to back Islamabad in a conflict with India,” Chellaney wrote on X.

The new treaty could therefore make Ankara's political and military support for Islamabad more structured.

What about Saudi Arabia?

Riyadh has deep security ties with Pakistan, and the two countries already had a bilateral mutual-defence agreement before Turkey joined the arrangement. In fact, Pakistan has deployed troops, fighter aircraft and air-defence capabilities to Saudi Arabia under its existing defence relationship with Riyadh.

At the same time, Saudi Arabia has substantial economic and strategic interests in India.

India and Saudi Arabia have extensive trade, investment, energy and people-to-people ties. India's official foreign-policy records also show growing defence cooperation with Riyadh, including military exercises and institutionalised defence dialogue.

It is also important to note that Pakistan didn't attack Iran when Tehran struck targets in Saudi, including energy and critical infrastructure. Saudi also didn't come to aide of Pakistan when it was indulged in a confrontation with Afghanistan.

Could Pakistan invoke the treaty?

Chellaney has argued that Islamabad could theoretically portray Indian punitive action against terrorist infrastructure or military targets as an act of war and seek to invoke the collective-defence provisions.

“Regardless of whether such provisions are ever invoked, the agreement institutionalizes a trilateral framework combining Saudi capital, Turkish defense technology and Pakistan's strategic geography, potentially accelerating joint defense R&D and intelligence sharing,” he wrote.

What does the pact mean for India's next operation against Pakistan

If India launches another Operation Sindoor-type action against Pakistan, the treaty could make the aftermath more complicated, but it does not establish that Saudi Arabia or Turkey would automatically enter the war.

“Although a mutual defense clause does not automatically guarantee military intervention, its existence could nonetheless complicate India's strategic calculus by introducing additional uncertainty into crisis planning and deterrence”, Chellaney's post read further.