Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia have signed a mutual defense agreement, while the Iran-backed Houthi rebels have stepped up attacks on Saudi-linked targets and Iran and Oman are at a cusp of an agreement on Hormuz.
On Friday, Oil-rich Saudi Arabia, nuclear power Pakistan and Turkey, which has NATO's second-largest army and a rapidly growing defense industry, signed a mutual defense agreement, which Saudi media outlet Al Arabiya dubbed the "Mecca Joint Defence Agreement".
The deal stipulates that an armed attack on either of the three countries will be regarded as an attack against them all.
Informed Turkish sources reported to The New Arab that the defense agreement is based on Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, regarding "the right to self-defense". Article 51 stipulates the right of member states to self-defense against any armed attack, and therefore the article will grant the three countries, Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, the right to joint self-defense against any external threat.
The sources added that the agreement includes cooperation in the military field, training, exchange of individuals, and conducting joint exercises.
Further consultations are being held to include military industrialisation also within the agreement, at a time when the agreement relies on the influence of the three countries in the region and enhancing their cooperation, in an effort to restore stability to the region.
It was signed during a meeting in Saudi Arabia between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Pakistan's foreign ministry said.
“The Agreement is intended to strengthen collective deterrence against any act of aggression,” the ministry said in a statement.
The deal comes at a time when Saudi Arabia, whose critical infrastructure and oil facilities have come under attack as part of the US-Israeli war on Iran, has been looking to diversify its defense partnerships.
A source close to the Saudi military and government told AFP that although the deal between Riyadh, Ankara and Islamabad had been under discussion for a long time, "the latest developments in the region expedite it".
Iran-backed Houthis launched attacks on Marib province in eastern Yemen Friday morning, in the latest escalation with Saudi-backed forces, a military official with the forces in Marib said.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media, said the missiles were fired from west of the Yemeni capital, Sanaa.
Local resident Khaled Masbih told The Associated Press that Houthi missiles struck multiple areas across the city, causing an unknown number of casualties. The Houthis did not claim the attack.
Separately, the rebel group struck the Najran region in southwestern Saudi Arabia near the Yemeni border on Thursday, the official spokesperson of the Saudi-led Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen, Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki, confirmed in a statement on X overnight.
He said the attack wounded 11 civilians, including a woman and a child who suffered second-degree burns, and accused the rebels of carrying out "indiscriminate shelling against civilian objects."
The rebel group did not claim responsibility for the attacks in Marib or Najran. A spokesperson for the Houthis, Nasruddin Amer, said on X on Friday that the group will continue to target gatherings of Saudi-backed forces.
The attacks mark a major escalation since a truce in 2022 largely halted fighting. The civil war pits the Iran-backed Houthis against a Saudi-led coalition allied with Yemen’s internationally recognised government.