Makkah Pact: What Has India Worried?
Ishtiaq Ahmed
Bradford: The Makkah Joint Defence Agreement between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye marks a potentially important development in the security landscape stretching from the Gulf to South Asia.
Signed in Makkah on August 7, the pact commits the three countries to collective defence: an armed attack on one is to be treated as an attack on all. Turkish officials have likened the principle to NATO’s Article 5, while stressing that the agreement is defensive and not directed against Iran or any other state.
It would be premature to call this an “Islamic NATO”. The three countries have not suddenly become a unified military bloc. Yet the agreement could gradually create a wider security network, with consequences for India.
The pact reflects growing uncertainty about the existing Middle Eastern security architecture. Saudi Arabia’s vulnerability to missile and drone attacks, combined with changing perceptions of the United States as the ultimate guarantor of Gulf security, has encouraged regional states to diversify their partnerships.
Saudi Arabia can simultaneously maintain ties with Iran, China and the United States while deepening military cooperation with Pakistan and Türkiye. The Makkah Pact is therefore better understood as a hedge against uncertainty rather than a rejection of America.
For Pakistan, the agreement offers more than symbolism. Saudi Arabia brings financial strength, energy influence and diplomatic reach; Türkiye contributes military and defence-industrial capabilities; and Pakistan brings substantial conventional forces, combat experience and the strategic significance of being a nuclear-armed state.
The arrangement also strengthens Pakistan’s position as a security actor with influence extending beyond South Asia. Pakistan’s growing reach is a concern for India.
India’s concern is not that Saudi Arabia or Türkiye will automatically support Pakistan in a conflict. There is no evidence that the pact requires them to do so. The deeper concern is that Pakistan could gain greater strategic depth and diplomatic backing.
Any future India-Pakistan crisis could therefore involve more capitals, greater mediation and additional political pressure. The diplomatic battlefield surrounding a military crisis could become almost as important as the military one.
The China factor adds another layer. Pakistan is a longstanding Chinese strategic partner, Saudi Arabia has substantially expanded its relationship with Beijing, and Türkiye continues to seek strategic room between major powers.
The pact is not evidence of a Chinese project, but it reflects a broader trend: states are diversifying their security partnerships rather than relying on a single external power. For India, this raises the possibility of facing a network of overlapping partnerships rather than a conventional alliance.
The Gulf is vital to India’s energy security, trade and investment, maritime interests, and the welfare of millions of Indians.
New Delhi has therefore carefully balanced its relationships with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iran, Israel, the United States and other key regional actors. The emergence of new security arrangements could make this balancing act considerably more difficult, particularly if additional countries join the pact.
If Egypt were to enter the agreement, for example, it could place further pressure on India to reassess aspects of its close relationship with Israel.
A broader security framework bringing together a larger number of Muslim-majority states, particularly one in which Pakistan assumes a more influential role, could also create new diplomatic challenges for New Delhi.
India’s domestic record on the treatment of Muslims and other minorities could come under greater international scrutiny within such a framework. Issues that New Delhi has so far sought to contain within the context of its domestic affairs could receive greater attention through a multilateral forum in which Pakistan has an enhanced position.
Similarly, the issue of Indian-occupied Kashmir, and what Pakistan characterises as India’s forced annexation of the territory, could receive renewed international attention.
Consequently, the expansion of such a security framework could narrow India’s diplomatic room for manoeuvre.
New Delhi may find it increasingly difficult to prevent contentious issues such as Kashmir and minority rights from entering broader regional and international discussions, particularly if Pakistan succeeds in securing a more prominent role within the emerging regional order.
Iran presents another complication. While the pact could be viewed as a Sunni coalition against Tehran, that interpretation is too simplistic.
Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan all have reasons to avoid an overt anti-Iranian alignment, and the signatories have explicitly described the pact as defensive. Nevertheless, Iran will have to assess whether to accommodate the arrangement, counterbalance it or improve relations with its members.
The agreement should also not be taken as proof that American influence in the Middle East is collapsing. The United States remains the region’s most powerful external military actor.
What is changing is the perception that no single external power can be relied upon in every contingency. Regional states are consequently building their own insurance policies.
For India, the appropriate response is therefore neither alarm nor alignment with one camp. New Delhi should strengthen its relationships across the Gulf while preserving ties with the United States, Russia, Iran and other major partners.
At the same time, in an increasingly fragmented strategic environment, India’s ability to maintain multiple relationships and preserve strategic autonomy is becoming more valuable, not less.
Makkah Joint Agreement is the culmination of long awaited expectations and aspirations of Muslim populace to see the beginning of awakening for some kind of united defence against unwarranted and illegal external aggression which has been and is still being committed by powerful western nations on Muslim sovereign states over the last quarter a century. Hence, the article is rightly written in the context of exploring the potential impact of the agreement not only on the region of Middle East and South Asia but on the entire future shaping of global world order.
Whereas, I do agree with the writer about broad coverage the potential benefits and the positive spirit of the article , I have a few strong reservations. I fear that as long as it is perceived and seen as a Sunni pact and all the American military bases remain unchallenged and safe in Saudi Arabia and Turkiye, it can not act as an instrument of peace and prosperity in the region because the joint influence and control of America and Israel will continue to be a grave threat to the region including, of course, to Iran. Thus , Israel with full support of America will also continue to encroach the territories of Palestine , Lebanon and Syria.
India may continue to forge its alliance both with Israel and America and even sign a defence pact with Israel. This pact of trio may become a regional block against China and Muslim alliance. At this initial stage there are too many ifs and buts and it is more than difficult to gaze into the precise make up of the emerging multi- polar world.
However, if the scale, size and activities of Makkah pact increase and it becomes an inclusive defence front of independent Muslim sovereign States, it can gain political strength and recognition before it ventures to intervene and test its defence capability.
This is a thoughtful and strategically balanced analysis. What makes it particularly valuable is that it avoids the temptation to immediately label the Makkah agreement an “Islamic NATO” and instead examines what the agreement could become over time.
The most important point, in my view, is that the significance of this development may lie less in the immediate military obligations of the three states and more in the strategic architecture that could gradually emerge around them. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye each possess different forms of strategic weight—financial and energy influence, military and nuclear capability, and defence-industrial and diplomatic reach. Their combination therefore has the potential to create something greater than the sum of its parts.
At the same time, history teaches us that alliances and security arrangements are ultimately tested not by declarations but by crises. The real question will be whether the three countries can translate political commitment into operational coordination, intelligence cooperation, defence-industrial integration, logistics, and—most importantly—common strategic decision-making.
I also agree that describing this simply as an anti-Iranian or anti-American arrangement would be too simplistic. The emerging international system appears increasingly characterised by strategic diversification rather than permanent bloc alignment. States are building multiple partnerships simultaneously, keeping their options open and creating what might be described as strategic insurance against an uncertain future.
For India, therefore, the challenge may not be the emergence of a conventional military alliance against it. The deeper challenge is the possibility of a gradually developing network in which Pakistan possesses greater diplomatic, economic and strategic connectivity across the Gulf, Türkiye and wider Muslim-majority world.
There is, however, one important caution: Kashmir, minority rights and other contentious political questions should not automatically be treated as inevitable consequences of a new security arrangement. Their international significance will depend upon the political objectives of the participating states and the institutions that eventually develop around the pact.
Ultimately, the most consequential question is whether this agreement remains a limited trilateral defence understanding or becomes the nucleus of a wider regional security architecture.
If the latter occurs, we may be witnessing not the birth of an “Islamic NATO”, but something potentially more interesting: a new model of multi-centred strategic cooperation, in which regional powers increasingly assume responsibility for their own security rather than depending exclusively on a single superpower.
That possibility deserves careful observation—not alarmism, not triumphalism, but serious strategic analysis.