Pakistani and Turkish military chiefs head to Riyadh for urgent talks, but both countries remain cautious about the extent of their involvement.
Islamabad, Pakistan — Turkiye and Pakistan are rushing their military chiefs to Riyadh in response to a call from Saudi Arabia for an urgent meeting on implementing their mutual defence agreement, amid the escalating war against the Houthis in Yemen that has spilled over into Saudi territory.
Turkiye’s Defence Ministry confirmed on Friday that General Selcuk Bayraktaroglu, the chief of general staff, will be travelling to Saudi Arabia.
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Pakistan’s chief of defence forces, Field Marshal Asim Munir, is also expected to arrive in the Saudi capital soon, Al Jazeera has learned, though the Inter-Services Public Relations, Pakistan’s military media wing, did not respond to a request for confirmation on whether Munir had departed for Riyadh.
The developments follow a Saudi request to Turkiye and Pakistan for their military chiefs to convene, following weeks of Houthi missile and drone attacks on Saudi territory.
The Houthis said on Thursday they had fired dozens of missiles and drones at Saudi targets, including a claimed strike on a “sensitive target” in Riyadh and on Saudi Aramco facilities in Yanbu. Saudi authorities said air defences intercepted six ballistic missiles aimed at Taif and Yanbu, and issued emergency alerts for Mecca, Jeddah and Yanbu.
The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, signed on August 7, treats an attack on any one of Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan as an attack on all three.
Saudi Arabia’s account of the days before Friday’s meeting showed how urgently Riyadh sees the crisis.
The meeting between three chiefs of staff was first announced after a meeting in New York on September 24 between the Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Ishaq Dar, and Turkish Foreign Minister, Hakan Fidan.
According to the Saudi foreign ministry, they discussed arrangements for an urgent chiefs of staff meeting to explore ways of supporting Saudi Arabia under the pact.
The statement condemned attacks targeting Mecca and civilian and economic facilities in the kingdom, and affirmed Saudi Arabia’s right to defend itself under Article 51 of the UN Charter.
Pakistan’s account of the same meeting sounded more cautious.
“Under the framework of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement (MJDA), we reviewed progress towards establishing the institutional structures under the agreement and exchanged views on regional and international security issues,” Dar posted on X.
Turkiye’s foreign ministry struck a similarly measured tone at the New York meeting. Turkish state media described it as a review of ongoing “technical negotiations” towards institutionalising the pact, ahead of a future meeting of its Strategic Political and Defence Committee.
Days earlier, Fidan had struck a notably different note in a live interview with Turkish broadcaster NTV.
“Our agreement includes an alliance commitment, we stand by our word,” he said. “Their military needs could particularly be in certain technical areas and we wouldn’t have any problem meeting that.”
Neither Islamabad’s nor Ankara’s account of the New York meeting mentioned the Houthi attacks that had prompted the Saudi statement.
That caution may be connected to direct warnings the Houthis have issued to both countries, say analysts.
The Iran-backed Houthis have in recent days made dramatic territorial gains against Yemen’s Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government forces. They seized the strategic port city of Mocha and then almost the entire Red Sea coast, including several islands. That has given the group greater control over the Bab al-Mandeb strait, the critically important maritime passage that Saudi Arabia was using to ship oil out after the US-Iran war effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz. This week, the Houthis also made advances towards Yemen’s highlands, even as battles with Saudi-backed government forces have escalated.
They have launched missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia — and threatened allies.
Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Houthi movement’s political bureau, told an Iraqi television programme this week that Pakistan and Turkiye would be met with an “iron fist” if they entered the war.
Tughral Yamin, a retired brigadier and senior associate at Islamabad’s Institute of Policy Studies, told Al Jazeera the constraints run on both sides of the pact.
“Sending troops would be difficult because the Pakistan Army is stretched thin on ground due to external and internal threats,” he said, referring to ongoing border clashes with Afghanistan, persistent tensions with India and mounting attacks domestically by armed groups. “It is also subject to speculation if Turkiye would be willing to divert troops to Saudi Arabia. Turkiye has its commitments to NATO and its border with Syria is not entirely secure.”
The Saudi religious establishment has struck an even more urgent note than the foreign ministry.
Grand Mufti Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan called on forces to “stand united against this misguided sect and deviant group”, referring to the Houthis.
He described defending the kingdom’s borders as a duty “for which lives and souls are sacrificed”.
In a rare message, Saudi King Salman struck a similar note days earlier, accusing the Houthis of attempting to strike Mecca again and telling a cabinet meeting in Jeddah that the attempt violated Islam’s holiest sites.
Gokhan Ereli, an international relations expert at Istanbul’s Ibn Haldun University, told Al Jazeera that the mufti’s message was significant domestically, even if its practical effect on Pakistan and Turkiye is limited.
“The mufti’s authority actually carries real weight in Saudi Arabia domestically, and this statement works above all as a mobilisation tool aimed at soldiers on the front line, giving a long, costly war a spiritual, religious anchor that makes sacrifices easier to accept,” he said.
“For Pakistan and Turkiye, the effect is more about tone than the obligation. Both governments already engage with Riyadh through existing security arrangements, and religious framing mainly reinforces the language of solidarity without altering the formal terms of those commitments,” the academic added.
A regional diplomat told Al Jazeera the messaging reflects a broader shift.
“The [Saudi] public have become increasingly aware of the threat of the Houthis, regularly receiving sirens warning of Houthi missile strikes usually aimed at civilian infrastructure,” the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “But this speech signifies a broader approach to raising civilian awareness and a reflection that things are likely to get worse, not better.”
Turkish Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmus said on Friday that the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement had not yet been submitted for parliamentary approval. He expected it to be formally submitted when the assembly returns from recess on October 1.
Under Turkiye’s constitution, international agreements only take effect once parliament ratifies them.
Two days before the New York meeting, Pakistan’s Foreign Office announced that retired Lieutenant General Nauman Mahmood had been appointed as the pact’s first secretary general.
Mahmood is a former senior officer at the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s main spy agency, and will lead the pact’s General Secretariat being set up in Riyadh.
“In practical terms, Pakistan has just sent a retired three-star general to Riyadh to assume the office of the secretary general of the Joint Defence Alliance,” Yamin said. “The task before him would be to assess the situation quickly and come up with some realistic answers.”
Pakistan “already has advisers, trainers, logisticians and technicians on the ground [in Saudi Arabia] under past bilateral protocols,” he added.
In April, Riyadh confirmed the arrival of a Pakistani military force, including fighter and support aircraft, at King Abdulaziz airbase in the kingdom’s Eastern province. That deployment under the two countries’ Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement, signed last September, came amid attacks on Saudi Arabia from Iran.
Pakistan has trained thousands of Saudi military personnel since 1967 and stationed troops in the kingdom since the 1970s, including to protect oil infrastructure in the Eastern Province.
Ereli said Saudi Arabia’s difficulty was not a lack of resources.
“Saudi Arabia’s resources, airpower and the years of external backing are there,” he said. “The real difficulty here lies in a fragmented, multi-actor coalition on the ground [in Yemen]. Limited US military commitment has left Riyadh carrying most of the operational weight on its own, straining its air defence capacity.”
France and Britain have offered defensive support. Britain agreed this week to refuel Saudi jets on defensive missions. France confirmed on Friday that it is sending troops to guard the major oil terminal at Yanbu, the Red Sea port that Saudi Arabia has been using to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.
Despite the mounting show of support from Pakistan, Turkiye, France and Britain, the regional diplomat said the Houthis show no sign of easing off in their campaign against Saudi Arabia and the forces it backs in Yemen.
“The Houthis have demonstrated their willingness and ability to target both civilian and military targets in Saudi Arabia and intend to continue to do so,” the diplomat said. “It’s clear Saudi Arabia is preparing for a sustained increase in tempo of operations which may include further loss of life.”
“Fighting is more contested than most think,” the diplomat added. “[Saudi-backed] coalition forces suffered a major logistical and operational setback in Mocha but are progressing slowly on the remaining fronts, and a battle may have been lost, but the war is yet to be decided.”
Yamin, for his part, said he was hopeful cooler heads would prevail.
“I hope a diplomatic solution would resolve the conflict, because none of us would like our country to get entangled in a war that is not of our making,” he said.
Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/25/pakistan-turkiye-edge-closer-towards-joining-saudi-war-against-houthis?traffic_source=rss