Pakistan will provide the first secretary general of the Makkah Defence Alliance, the tri-nation pact with Saudi Arabia and Türkiye, for a three-year term — with the alliance’s permanent secretariat to be established in Riyadh (Express Tribune; Geo News; Arab News; The Nation).
The three decisions
The announcement was made by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan after the grouping’s inaugural Strategic Political and Defence Committee meeting, held in Istanbul on 31 August. Three things were settled:
1. The grouping will henceforth be known as the Makkah Defence Alliance — a renaming of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement signed on 7 August. 2. A permanent secretariat will be established in Riyadh. 3. The first secretary general will be from Pakistan, serving an initial three-year term.
Who has not been named
No individual has been announced. The three governments have said the post goes to a Pakistani for the first three years; they have not said which Pakistani, and no name should be inferred from the delegation list below.
Who was in the room
– Pakistan — Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, and Chief of Defence Forces Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir – Türkiye — Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Defence Minister Yaşar Güler, and Chief of the General Staff General Selçuk Bayraktaroğlu – Saudi Arabia — Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, and Chief of the General Staff General Fayyadh bin Hamed Al-Ruwaili
What the three committed to
The parties agreed to “strengthen their defence capabilities and the cohesion of their armed forces through joint activities, expanded defence-industrial cooperation and joint development and production of military technology.”
The stated agenda covers joint counterterrorism work, collective deterrence, coordination between the three armed forces, and defence-industrial cooperation including joint production and research and development.
Fidan said the meeting aimed at “promoting regional peace, stability and prosperity”, that the three were “working on a roadmap for process of other countries to participate”, and — twice, in different formulations — that the alliance is not directed against any particular country.
Why the secretariat matters more than the name
A defence agreement without a standing body is a statement of intent that has to be re-energised at each summit. A permanent secretariat with a full-time secretary general is the machinery that turns it into a continuing institution: it holds the calendar, drafts the joint work, and gives the arrangement somewhere to live between ministerial meetings.
That Pakistan holds the first secretary generalship while Saudi Arabia hosts the building is a recognisable division — the host state provides the seat and the funding weight, the partner state provides the first office-holder. For Pakistan it is a substantive institutional role in a Gulf security arrangement, secured at a moment when the region’s security is anything but settled.
The alliance was signed three weeks before US strikes on Iran’s Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranian missile response against American bases in Jordan. Fidan’s insistence that it targets no particular country is the sentence that will be read most closely in Tehran, Delhi and Washington alike.
What happens next
No date was given for the secretariat becoming operational, and no schedule was announced for naming the secretary general.
[Image: the inaugural meeting of the Strategic Political and Defence Committee established under the Makkah Defence Agreement, Istanbul. AFP, via Express Tribune.]
[Image: AFP via Express Tribune]
