The Pact and the Invitation
The Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, signed on August 7, 2026, at Al-Safa Palace in Makkah, binds Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan in a NATO-style collective security arrangement. Its central provision is that an armed attack against any one of the three signatories is to be treated as an attack against all three, committing them to collective deterrence against aggression. The three founding members bring complementary capabilities to the arrangement. Turkiye is a major NATO military power with a advanced defence industrial base; Saudi Arabia possesses the largest defence budget in the region and serves as the leading Arab military and economic force; Pakistan is the only nuclear armed country in the Muslim world. The pact was signed amid heightened regional instability following the outbreak of the US-Israeli war on Iran, and the three governments have presented it as a framework for closer security coordination rather than a replacement for their existing bilateral partnerships.
Now, less than three months after its signing, Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al Shaibani has confirmed that Damascus is engaged in “discussions currently underway to evaluate Syria’s entry into the Mecca alliance”. Saudi Arabia has been under sustained Houthi attack, including a strike that closed Riyadh’s international airport for two weeks this month, and is actively rallying regional support for its defence. Syria’s potential accession would transform the pact from a tripartite arrangement into a four member bloc spanning the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula, South Asia and the broader Middle East.
Why Syria Is Considering the Move
Syria’s interest in the pact cannot be separated from the profound realignment of its foreign policy since the fall of Bashar al Assad in December 2024. Under President Ahmed al Sharaa, Damascus has sought to rebuild a country devastated by nearly 14 years of civil war and has looked to Saudi Arabia as its most important political and economic partner. Riyadh has responded with substantial investment, including a multibillion dollar package covering aviation, energy, real estate and telecommunications, and has facilitated Syria’s engagement with Washington. But Syria’s motivations extend beyond economics. Al-Shaibani used the Manama Dialogue platform to declare that “the security of the Gulf is an integral part of Syrian regional security” and that Damascus “will stand beside all of the Gulf countries” against “militias that cross borders”. He also condemned recent missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia and affirmed Syria’s support for Yemen’s internationally recognised government in restoring its sovereignty.
Crucially, Al-Shaibani linked Syria’s potential membership to its own security predicament. He noted that Israel has carried out more than 1,000 attacks on Syria in less than two years, killing dozens of people, and asked: “How can calls for border control and placing weapons exclusively under state control be justified while Syrian sovereignty is violated and targeted on a daily basis?”. For Syria, joining the Makkah pact would provide a regional security umbrella, a deterrent against further Israeli strikes and a framework for rebuilding its shattered armed forces with access to intelligence sharing, military training and defence cooperation from three of the Muslim world’s most significant military powers.
What Syria Brings and What It Does Not
Syria’s military today is a shadow of what it once was. The country “barely has a functioning military, which is effectively a patchwork of Islamist factions,” and whatever discipline remains is largely attributable to the recent integration of the US trained, Kurdish led Syrian Democratic Forces, which account for less than 10 percent of the military. Syria does not possess the military or economic capabilities of Saudi Arabia, Turkiye or Pakistan. But what Syria lacks in hard power it compensates for in geography and strategic position. Situated at the crossroads of Turkiye, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and the Mediterranean, and on Israel’s immediate border, Syria’s entry into a regional security framework would extend the pact’s reach to the Levant and give it a frontline position against Israeli operations in the region. Syria also brings recent, hard won experience in confronting cross border militias, having spent years fighting Iran backed groups and other armed actors on its territory.
Al-Shaibani explicitly offered to transfer this experience to strengthen regional cooperation and stability. For a pact whose members are now confronting Houthi attacks on Saudi infrastructure, that experience may prove valuable. There is also a practical dimension: Al-Sharaa reportedly asked Riyadh during his October visit to urge Pakistan to supply Syria with necessary weapons and to help open channels for direct arms deals with the Pakistani military. Membership in the pact would formalise and accelerate that defence relationship.
The Strategic Implications for the Pact and the Region
If Syria joins, the Makkah pact would cease to be a Gulf-centric arrangement and become a broader regional security architecture stretching from the Levant to South Asia. For Saudi Arabia, Syria’s membership would add an Arab partner to a pact that currently includes two non Arab members, strengthening its legitimacy as an Arab led security framework and providing additional manpower and geographic depth in its confrontation with the Houthis. For Turkiye, which already maintains extensive military and security cooperation with Damascus, including efforts to rebuild Syria’s armed forces, Syria’s entry would consolidate Ankara’s influence in the Levant and create a contiguous sphere of Turkish aligned security from the Mediterranean to the Gulf. For Pakistan, the pact’s expansion would deepen its role as a security guarantor in the Middle East, a role it has already signalled it takes seriously.
Pakistan’s commitments to Saudi Arabia run on two tracks: the bilateral Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement and the wider Makkah pact that includes Turkiye, and Pakistan’s military spokesman has said Islamabad would provide “whatever support is needed” to help defend Saudi Arabia. The pact’s wording does not bar new members, and a Pakistani official has said that “anyone who has a shared vision of collective deterrence and regional peace” is welcome to join. But the most consequential implications may lie in what the pact means for Israel. Israeli analyses have described Syria’s potential accession as a “nightmare scenario” that would provide Damascus with military deterrence and alter the regional balance of power. If Syria were attacked by Israel, it could invoke the pact’s collective defence clause and request assistance from Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, a prospect that would fundamentally change Israel’s calculus in its ongoing campaign of strikes inside Syria.
Iran’s Complicated Position
Iran’s relationship with the Makkah pact is more nuanced than a simple rejection. In August 2026, Iranian officials confirmed that Tehran had received an invitation to join the alliance and was examining it. A spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry said there was “no reason to think that the Mecca pact is targeted against Iranians”. A Turkish source indicated that Iran had said it would “participate without hesitation” in order to clarify the alliance’s intentions. These signals suggest that Tehran is not treating the pact as an inherently hostile bloc, at least not publicly.
But the prospect of Syria joining a Saudi aligned security framework would be a bitter pill to swallow. It would signal that Damascus has definitively pivoted away from Tehran and toward Riyadh, a realignment that the fall of Assad set in motion but that the Makkah pact would formalise. Whether Iran would respond by seeking its own membership, by intensifying support for its remaining proxies, or by attempting to disrupt the pact’s consolidation remains unclear.