Yemen Crisis: Can the Mecca Defense Pact Survive Its First Real Test?
Just days after Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, renewed Houthi attacks have raised an immediate question: could Yemen become the first real test of the new trilateral security arrangement?
The agreement, signed in Mecca on August 7 by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, establishes a collective defense framework. According to the official joint statement, an armed attack against any of the three countries would be regarded as an attack against them all.
But translating collective-defense language into action may prove far more complicated.
The Guardian reported that Yemen could provide the agreement’s first major test as military exchanges between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-aligned Houthis intensified. The newspaper reported that Houthi missile and drone attacks had killed at least 58 Yemeni government troops, while a separate attack inside southern Saudi Arabia injured 11 civilians.
The escalation continued. On August 20, Reuters reported that the Houthis said they had launched drone attacks targeting Najran airport and an Aramco facility in southern Saudi Arabia.
The question is therefore increasingly relevant: what would Turkey and Pakistan actually do if Houthi attacks against Saudi territory intensify?
The First Test
Yaqoub Al-Sufyani, regional director of the Aden-based South24 Center for News and Studies, told this author that the agreement comes at a particularly sensitive moment for regional security.
He argues that the pact seeks to provide Saudi Arabia with a broader security umbrella as Riyadh faces threats from the Houthis and other Iran-aligned armed groups. A serious escalation, he believes, could test whether Turkey and Pakistan are prepared to move beyond political solidarity and take concrete measures to deter attacks.
Yemeni political analyst Bassem Al-Hakimi, however, expects Ankara and Islamabad to avoid direct military involvement. Their support, he argues, is more likely to involve military expertise, intelligence or logistical assistance rather than deployment of combat forces.
History supports that possibility. In 2015, when Saudi Arabia sought military support for its intervention in Yemen, Pakistan’s parliament voted against joining the Saudi-led campaign, choosing neutrality while pledging to defend Saudi Arabia’s territorial integrity.
Turkey also has a complicated history with Riyadh over Yemen. After Saudi Arabia condemned Turkey’s 2019 military operation in northern Syria, Erdoğan responded by criticizing Riyadh’s intervention in Yemen, telling Saudi leaders to “look in the mirror”.
Relations have improved considerably since then, but these precedents show how national interests can diverge even between close partners.
Iran in the Background
Iran inevitably looms over the new agreement, although Turkish officials insist that the pact does not identify Tehran — or any other country — as a common enemy.
Tehran nevertheless reacted cautiously. Iranian parliamentarian Ebrahim Rezaei criticized the agreement, arguing that a “paper agreement” with Turkey and Pakistan would not guarantee Saudi security.
Turkey’s position is particularly delicate. Ankara wants to preserve channels with Tehran and avoid a broader regional confrontation, while instability in the Red Sea directly affects Turkish economic interests.
In an August 8 interview, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan linked Red Sea security to Turkish interests, noting that disruption of the region’s trade routes directly affects Turkey.
Ankara therefore faces a difficult balance: protecting maritime trade and supporting its Saudi partner without being drawn into an open-ended confrontation with Iran or its regional allies.
Alliance on Paper, Alliance in War?
Saudi Arabia has previous experience with ambitious regional security coalitions. The Arab coalition assembled for the Yemen intervention in 2015 initially included several states but gradually lost much of its original military cohesion.
Riyadh also launched the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition in December 2015, bringing together dozens of Muslim-majority countries. Yet it never developed into a NATO-style integrated military organization.
The Mecca agreement may prove different. Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan already maintain substantial bilateral military relations, and the new framework seeks to deepen cooperation in defense and security.
Yet its real test will not come through declarations or joint exercises. It will come when collective defense carries a genuine political and military cost.
Yemen could expose that dilemma sooner than expected. Saudi Arabia wants stronger deterrence against the Houthis; Turkey seeks to protect regional trade while avoiding confrontation with Iran; and Pakistan must balance its strategic partnership with Riyadh against its traditional reluctance to become directly involved in Middle Eastern wars.
The Mecca pact is therefore an experiment in whether three powerful states with overlapping — but not identical — interests can transform strategic cooperation into genuine collective defense.
Its durability may ultimately be measured not in Mecca, but on the battlefield.
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