22OCT

Sharif, Munir and Dar land in Jeddah

3 min read

17:22UTC

Pakistan's prime minister, army chief and foreign minister arrived in Jeddah on 6 August, with Erdogan following a day later, ahead of a trilateral defence text nobody outside the room has read.

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Key takeaway

Three delegations, one city, and a defence text nobody outside the room has read.

Pakistan's prime minister Shehbaz Sharif, army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir and foreign minister Ishaq Dar landed in Jeddah on Thursday 6 August, received by Prince Saud bin Mishaal, deputy governor of the Makkah region. The arrival account comes from the SPA (Saudi Press Agency), The Kingdom's state wire, relayed by Saudi Gazette, and Pakistan's Prime Minister's Office issued a statement saying the same⁠¹⁠². Sharif and Munir performed Umrah, the lesser pilgrimage undertaken outside the Hajj season, alongside defence minister Khawaja Asif and special assistant Tariq Fatemi. Recep Tayyip Erdogan travelled to the city on Friday 7 August to join Sharif and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman⁠³.

A trilateral Pakistan, Turkiye and Saudi defence instrument is expected to be signed on Saturday 8 August, covering joint military exercises, technology transfer, defence-industrial production and intelligence sharing⁠⁴. No signature has been reported. As of Friday the verifiable position amounts to three delegations in one city and a text nobody outside them has seen.

Nothing about the underlying obligation began this week, and the arrivals should not be read as an alignment forming from nothing. Ishaq Dar told Pakistan's Parliament on Saturday 7 March that Islamabad had reminded Tehran of the Saudi-Pakistan mutual defence pact, under which an attack on one signatory counts as an attack on both. Pakistan Air Force F-16s were reinforcing Saudi airspace by mid-April. Dar carried that message in March and stands in the Jeddah delegation now negotiating its expansion.

Two things have changed. Turkiye sat outside the arrangement before, and a mutual defence clause is reportedly being widened into an industrial programme. That second difference outlasts the war. A defence clause binds a signatory during a crisis and lapses into paper once the crisis passes. Joint production lines, transferred technology and standing exercise cycles build capability that survives the emergency which justified it, and they commit procurement budgets for a decade.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Pakistan's prime minister, army chief and foreign minister flew to the Saudi city of Jeddah on 6 August, with Turkey's president due to join them the next day, ahead of a defence agreement the three countries have not yet signed. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia already have a mutual defence pact, and Pakistan sent fighter jets to help defend Saudi airspace earlier in the war. This visit would add Turkey to that relationship for the first time.

What could happen next?

Precedent
A signed trilateral instrument would extend the Saudi-Pakistan defence relationship to include Turkey as a formal party for the first time this war.

Source Landscape

This story draws on mixed-leaning sources from United States, Saudi Arabia and 1 more

Saudi Arabia×2

United States

France

LeftRight

Primary parallel: Pakistan already invoked its mutual defence pact with Saudi Arabia in March, when Ishaq Dar told Pakistan's parliament Islamabad had reminded Tehran of the arrangement (ID:866), and followed that in April by sending F-16s to reinforce Saudi airspace (ID:2639). The Jeddah visit extends a relationship already active in both diplomatic and military terms.

Counter-parallel: Turkey's addition has no equivalent recent precedent in this war; Ankara has not previously deployed forces or issued a comparable defence commitment to Saudi Arabia during the conflict, so its role in any signed instrument would be genuinely new rather than a formalisation of existing practice.

Consensus view: Adding Turkey to a Saudi-Pakistan defence arrangement that already produced Pakistani F-16 deployments to Saudi airspace in April and a public invocation of the mutual defence pact in March turns a bilateral wartime arrangement into a three-country instrument, changing who else Riyadh could call on if the campaign Saudi officials warned of the same day materialises.

Counter-view: An unsigned instrument commits nobody. Sharif, Munir and Dar arriving a day before Erdogan, rather than alongside him, suggests Pakistan and Turkey may be negotiating separate bilateral terms with Riyadh rather than arriving as a unified bloc.

Key tension: Whether the instrument formalises military commitments already made informally in April, or adds new obligations neither Pakistan nor Turkey has previously accepted toward Saudi Arabia.

Sources:CNN·Saudi Gazette·Euronews

Mentions:Shehbaz Sharif →Asim Munir →Ishaq Dar →Recep Tayyip Erdogan →Mohammed bin Salman →Saudi Arabia →Turkey →Pakistan →Khawaja Asif →Jeddah →Riyadh →Saudi Press Agency →Ankara →Tehran →F-16 →Islamabad →

First Reported In

Update #167 · Riyadh names its next targets; Najran is hit

CNN· 7 Aug 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Pakistani F-16s reinforce Saudi airspace mid-war

The Jeddah delegation deepens the airspace-integration commitment Pakistan supplied in April into a wider trilateral instrument.

Occurred 15 Apr 2026

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Pakistan invokes Saudi-Iran defence pact

Dar, who told Pakistan's parliament in March that Islamabad had reminded Tehran of the mutual defence pact, is in the Jeddah delegation now negotiating its expansion.

Occurred 7 Mar 2026

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This Event

Sharif, Munir and Dar land in Jeddah

A mutual defence clause obliges a signatory during a crisis; joint production lines and transferred technology outlast it.

Led to

Le Monde reports a Mecca defence pact

The reported Mecca signing followed the prior Jeddah arrivals of Pakistani and Turkish leaders.

Occurred 6 Aug 2026

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Different Perspectives

Wang Yi

China's foreign minister and Djibouti's issued a joint communique on 21 October saying the war should not reach the Horn of Africa and stressing free navigation through Bab al-Mandeb. The text names neither Iran nor the Houthis, and Djibouti hosts China's only overseas military base, opposite the Yemeni coast.

Ministry of External Affairs

India's foreign ministry called the attacks on Saudi civilian and energy sites "unacceptable" on 22 October and said they must stop at once. An Indian died at Dammam, Indians were injured there and at Shaybah, and about 4,000 Umrah pilgrims remain stranded by one MP's count.

Iraq

Iraq closed the al-Sheeb crossing with Iran to travellers and trucks from 21 October and said other crossings would close gradually. Unlike September's closure, which ended on a staged timetable, this one has none, and Iran's interior ministry said it received no notice.

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi

Egypt's president said on 21 October that Cairo's support would "defend Saudi territory, and does not include an attack on Yemen". Araghchi warned that Egyptian involvement would further complicate the situation, and Cairo's limit matches the one Ankara set on 8 October against attacking another state's soil.

UK Ministry of Defence

The MoD said on 20 October that RAF Typhoons over Saudi Arabia will not strike the Houthis, but extended tanker support to Saudi operations including against Houthi targets in Yemen. The tanker line sets no limit on strikes, so British aircraft may now refuel Saudi jets on bombing runs.

Turkey

Ankara sent the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement to parliament around 20 October, and its published text treats an attack on one party as an attack on all. Article 16 brings it into force only on the last ratification, so the 5 October invocation in Riyadh could not yet bind Turkey.

Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.