The New Trilateral Axis in Asia: What the Pakistan-Saudi-Türkiye Pact Means for India

On 7 August 2026, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Türkiye jointly entered into a defence alliance, known as the ‘Mecca Joint Defence Agreement‘. Under this pact, an attack on any one of the three countries would be considered an attack on all three, and accordingly, the three countries would provide each other with the necessary defence support. In the parlance of international relations, this arrangement constitutes a formal alliance, where an attack on any one member is effectively an attack on all. During the Cold War, from 1945 to 1991, several military and defence alliances emerged on the global stage. Examples include the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the Warsaw Pact, the Australia-New Zealand security arrangement, the United States-South Korea alliance, and the US-Japan alliance, among others.

Pakistan is a neighbouring country to India, and both have had a tense bilateral relationship since their inception, due to political issues and Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in the Jammu and Kashmir region. Therefore, a country that has been nurturing terrorism and unleashing it into the territory of India has entered into an alliance framework. Hence, this new trilateral agreement is also likely to have implications for India.

In this context, there are two major possible implications for India:

First, Pakistan may become more confident knowing that two countries are available to provide assistance or defence cooperation in times of crisis. Particularly in the event of an India–Pakistan conflict, India may need to consider the possibility of diplomatic or other forms of support that Pakistan could receive from Saudi Arabia and Türkiye. Over the last decade, India and Pakistan have repeatedly skirted the brink of large-scale conflict. From the 2016 surgical strikes, a direct response to attacks in Poonch and Uri, to the 2019 Balakot airstrikes following the Pulwama tragedy, and the 2025 operations after the Pahalgam killings, India has consistently responded to cross-border provocations with targeted, punitive strikes. The key point here is that India has kept retaliating against the terrorist attacks in the form of small-scale military operations in Pakistan’s territory, destroying terror infrastructure. India is likely to continue similar strikes if Pakistan does not stop sending terrorists across the border and harbouring terrorism in the country. India has also announced that the ‘Operation Sindoor‘ that was launched in May 2025 is continuing, in some form or another. On the other hand, Pakistan has been seeing these strikes as a gross violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty.

Hence, the second implication India likely faces is that if it were to undertake any military action within Pakistani territory in the future, it would have to consider not only Pakistan’s response but also its relations with Saudi Arabia and Türkiye, as they are now in formal military alliances. This is particularly important in the case of Saudi Arabia, with which India has developed cordial and increasingly strategically significant bilateral relations over the past few years. Therefore, India must carefully calibrate its security responses to ensure that military necessity does not create untenable friction with Saudi Arabia and Türkiye.

On the other hand, India’s relations with Türkiye have not been that cordial because of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s close ties and support for Pakistan, along with Türkiye’s overall support for Pakistan on the Jammu and Kashmir issue. Additionally, Türkiye’s support for Pakistan with drone delivery during the Operation Sindoor against India has strained bilateral ties. Despite that, attempts have been made at the Track 2 dialogue level to mend India-Türkiye bilateral ties. Still, the ultimate result will depend upon how the two sides accommodate each other’s strategic interests.

However, there is another important aspect that needs to be taken into consideration in this entire situation, which is that India’s position has consistently been ‘anti-terrorism and counter terrorism‘. India has been taking an active stance on counter terrorism, right from raising public awareness, counter terrorism challenges at international forums, in bilateral, trilateral, and multilateral diplomatic engagements, to taking hard punitive actions on the ground, including military strikes on terror infrastructure. Hence, India’s primary focus has been on destroying the terror infrastructure and system. Even if India has carried out strikes in the territory of Pakistan, India has categorically taken a position that this action is not against the state or civilian population of Pakistan, but against the terrorists and terror infrastructure.

A normative, balanced and pragmatic position on counter terrorism could become particularly important for India in the coming period, especially while engaging diplomatically with Saudi Arabia and Türkiye, during the India-Pakistan conflict over counter-terrorism.

In particular, India would need to effectively communicate that any potential military action it would take against Pakistan is neither directed against Pakistan’s civilian population nor against Pakistan’s sovereign existence, but specifically against terrorist infrastructure. India has consistently shared intelligence regarding terror infrastructure with the Pakistani government. To strengthen its position, India should proactively share this same intelligence with Saudi Arabia and Türkiye, as well as the broader international community, to show that its military actions respond to specific, actionable threats. This will help India justify its position internationally, especially to Pakistan’s allies.

Nevertheless, against the backdrop of this new defence alliance, what position Saudi Arabia and Türkiye will ultimately adopt, and in what ways they will cooperate with India on issues concerning Indian interests, will become clear only with time.

Nihar Kulkarni is a PhD scholar of international relations at the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, University of Warsaw, Poland. His PhD thesis examines “the evolution of India’s strategic partnership with Japan in the Indo-Pacific region since 2007." His research areas include India’s foreign policy and national security, geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific region, great power politics, strategic partnerships, and alliance frameworks. His work primarily examines evolving strategic and geopolitical dynamics in Asia and the broader international system.