Turkiye, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan's Mecca Pact: What it means for India

Much is being made of the 'Mecca Pact' between Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. In converting the region into a single 'Sunni security' arc, it has the potential to redefine the Indo-Pacific. Implications for India are sensitive, and New Delhi must not treat this development lightly. But at the same time, making too much of it is also an error.

Turkiye's military weight, deftech capacity and Nato link, Saudi Arabia's deep petro pockets and geostrategic calibrations, and Pakistan's operational military capacity and nuclear status can form a whole that can be larger than the sum of its parts. Despite ostensibly being about reducing dependence on Washington, the entity's US ties give it defence interoperability. But, then, Pakistan's 'all-weather strategic cooperative partnership' with China forms an internal circuit-breaker of sorts.

Also read: India examining Mecca Joint Defence Agreement's impact on national security, regional stability, says MEA


It's too early to see how the troika will hold in its current labelling as an 'anti-Shia' (read: Iran) bulwark. The proof may well be in pudding of its 'attack against one is attack against all' clause. Meanwhile, New Delhi's relationship with Riyadh will not be altered significantly, as evident from the latter's mutual defence pact with Islamabad last year.

But India must be vigilant and restrained, track China's increased involvement in the region, and diplomatic cover given to Pakistan. New Delhi needs to rework its calculus in the western Indian Ocean and the Gulf.

Also read: Turkey expects Egypt to join Saudi-Pakistan defence pact

More widely, it must rethink its approach to global engagement by going beyond the transactional bilateral that seems all the rage, to create networks leveraging both traditional and unconventional pathways for partnerships. In other words, give 'strategic autonomy' the depth that comes with multilateral spaces like Quad and BRICS+.