Pakistan is reportedly attempting to reframe the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement — signed with Saudi Arabia and Turkey — from a limited mutual defence arrangement into a broader anti-Israel and anti-India military coalition, according to an analysis published in The Times of Israel by Italian geopolitical expert Sergio Restelli.

What Triggered the Concern

Within hours of the three-nation pact being signed in Mecca, Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif publicly named the alliance's adversaries — a step the agreement's carefully worded official text had deliberately avoided. According to Restelli, Asif called on Muslim nations to unite militarily against Israel, arguing that the threat posed by the Jewish state extended beyond Palestine to the Muslim world at large. Asif also placed India in the same frame of adversarial states.

'Asif called for Muslim countries to unite against Israel and advocated a united military front, arguing that the threat posed by the Jewish state extended beyond Palestine to the Muslim world as a whole,' Restelli wrote. He noted that Pakistani politicians have 'frequently adopted strongly anti-Israel and strongly anti-semitic positions,' but added that what distinguishes Asif's latest remarks is their timing — coming immediately after Islamabad entered a potentially historic collective defence arrangement.

What the Mecca Pact Actually Says

The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement unites three Sunni-majority nations with a combined population of roughly 380 million. Its core provision is a collective defence clause: an armed attack on any one member is to be treated as an attack on all three. On paper, Restelli noted, the pact is 'directed against nobody in particular.' Pakistan, he argued, appears intent on giving it a far more expansive — and contentious — purpose.

'Islamabad has repeatedly advocated stronger military coordination between Muslim countries, and Asif himself has spoken about the need for Muslim states to develop collective security arrangements,' Restelli observed. With limited economic leverage, Pakistan's primary contributions to the alliance are its army, Chinese weaponry, and nuclear arsenal.

Saudi Arabia's Delicate Balancing Act

The analysis highlights that the three member states have fundamentally different relationships with Israel — and that Saudi Arabia's position is the most complex. While Riyadh does not recognise Israel, Saudi-Israeli normalisation remains a logical next step in the Abraham Accords process and a cornerstone of the emerging economic architecture linking India, the Gulf, and Europe.

'Projects such as the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor ultimately become far more viable in a region where Saudi Arabia and Israel can cooperate,' Restelli wrote, noting that Riyadh had seriously considered joining the Abraham Accords before the Hamas attack in October 2023. An explicitly anti-Israel reading of the Mecca pact, he argued, would make that normalisation considerably harder.

Saudi Arabia would also find it difficult to align with a bloc that Islamabad defines as confronting India — a strong Saudi ally. 'The kingdom must simultaneously manage its position as a leader of the Islamic world, its support for Palestinian statehood, its strategic relationship with Washington and the possibility of eventually normalising relations with Israel,' Restelli stated.

The First Test for the New Alliance

Restelli concluded that Pakistan's framing creates the alliance's first significant internal test almost immediately after its formation. Saudi Arabia could plausibly join a mutual defence arrangement with Pakistan and Turkey against threats from Iran and the Houthis — but joining a military bloc whose purpose Islamabad defines as confronting Israel or India is a fundamentally different proposition for Riyadh.

Whether Saudi Arabia pushes back against Pakistan's expansive interpretation — or allows the ambiguity to persist — will be an early indicator of how much strategic coherence this new three-nation alliance actually possesses.