Sharif Says Pakistan’s Commitment to Saudi Arabia Is “Resolute” a Day After Fidan Rules Out Offensive Turkish Role

On Friday 9 October, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the latest Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and tied his country’s position to the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement. The day before, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan had said in Ankara that the same pact is not an attack agreement. Read together, the two statements show how far the three members have moved since they met in Riyadh on 5 October, and how little they have said about what moving means.

The pact was signed on 7 August. Its members treat an attack on one as an attack on all three. At the Riyadh meeting, as Silent Dossier reported on 6 October, they agreed to deploy forces to the kingdom under “approved arrangements” and each state’s national laws, without numbers or dates.

Sharif, writing on X, called Pakistan’s commitment to Saudi sovereignty “resolute” and named the Riyadh and Abha airports as targets. Fidan said Turkey will not send troops into another country to attack it. Turkey’s parliament has not yet ratified the pact. Neither man gave a date, a unit or a number for any deployment.

In a post on X on 9 October, Sharif condemned the strikes on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh and Abha International Airport, according to Dawn. He wrote: “our commitment to the Kingdom’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and security is resolute.” He added: “We will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with Saudi Arabia in the face of these threats.”

His post cited “recent decisions taken by its Strategic Political and Defence Committee”, the body that met in Riyadh. Dawn noted that the statement does not say what those decisions were. Saudi authorities said on Wednesday that three people were killed and 36 injured in the attacks on the two airports, Dawn reported.

Fidan spoke on 8 October at a joint press conference in Ankara with his Hungarian counterpart, in remarks carried by Reuters and Dawn. “When a country of this agreement is attacked, you have to side with them,” he said. Then: “This is not an attack agreement. Turkiye is not carrying out an attack by sending troops to another country’s land.”

On the military side he was brief. “The technical evaluations are [being] carried out, and these continue among our military officials,” Fidan said. The Tribune quoted him as adding: “Yemen’s legitimate government forces are already continuing the battle on the ground, and Saudi Arabia is supporting them.” He said the paperwork to send the agreement to the Turkish parliament for ratification is complete. Reuters reported that officials are weighing contributions such as air defence and electronic warfare.

Sharif’s post is written in the language of obligation. Fidan’s remarks are written in the language of limits. The two men spoke within a day of each other.

The sequence is short. On 5 October the committee agreed to rapid deployment. On 8 October Fidan said the Turkish part would be technical and defensive, with the text still on its way to parliament. On 9 October Sharif said Pakistan’s commitment is resolute and named no action.

The analysts quoted on the pact had flagged this gap before the Riyadh meeting. The Arab Center Washington DC’s Unit for Political Studies wrote on 19 August that “the agreement does not establish a joint command, standing forces, or any specified trigger mechanism.” Its conclusion: “Despite the headlines, the Mecca agreement is unlikely to produce a real military response if an attack happens.”

On 25 September, Al Jazeera quoted Tughral Yamin of Islamabad’s Institute of Policy Studies saying: “Sending troops would be difficult because the Pakistan Army is stretched thin on ground.” Gokhan Ereli of Istanbul’s Ibn Haldun University told the same outlet: “For Pakistan and Turkiye, the effect is more about tone than the obligation.”

A foreign minister who says “you have to side with them” and also says no troops will cross a border has described a pact that works through words, equipment and legal process. Sharif’s “resolute” is the same kind of word.

The contrast with the first week of the pact is also clear. On 19 September Fidan told NTV that Saudi Arabia may have military needs, “especially on some technical issues”, and that “we would have no issues in meeting these.” Three weeks later the offer is still technical, and now it has a stated ceiling.

Three markers will show whether the words become deployments. The first is the Turkish parliament: Fidan says the text is ready, and Turkish law requires parliamentary approval before troops go abroad. The second is any published list of what Pakistan and Turkey send, since the 5 October decision gave no figures. The third is the next Houthi strike on a Saudi airport, which would test whether “shoulder to shoulder” means anything beyond a statement.

Until one of those appears, the pact has no announced troops attached to it.