On 07 Augst 2026, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Türkiye signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, which also includes an Article 5-style mutual defence provision.
The latest episode of Defence Uncut – Quwa’s Pakistani defence news and commentary podcast, hosted by Arslan Khan and Bilal Khan, unpacks the apparent intent and actual potential and risks of this landmark multilateral framework.
Potential Blockers of the Mecca Pact
Pakistan joined two groups like this before. SEATO and CENTO both failed.
Neither had a firm mutual defence clause, a joint command, or the same weapons. And CENTO’s members worried more about their own neighbours than about the Soviet Union.
The three Makkah countries do not share a land border. None of them can move an army a long way. Pakistan has no amphibious ships at all.
During the Iranian missile attacks, Greek Patriot crews in Saudi Arabia shot down more missiles than Türkiye did. Quwa wrote about the same pattern when the Gulf states called Kyiv instead of Islamabad for air defence.
What the Three Can Still Build
Saudi Arabia has money. It wants to repair its own aircraft and ships, build factories on cheap energy, and buy ammunition without political conditions.
Türkiye has factories and finished products. It needs big, steady customers, because European firms still keep it out of NATO orders.
Pakistan has the engineers. PAEC and NESCOM employ very good ones. What it lacks is the money to keep them busy.
So Pakistan draws weapons it never builds. Global Industrial & Defence Solutions took its designs to Riyadh to find money. A Saudi rule makes every foreign seller take a local partner first.
The three could also build the same missile in three places. One interceptor factory in Pakistan is an easy target. Three factories and a shared stockpile are much harder to destroy.
Saudi Arabia and Türkiye do not want Pakistani warheads. They want the whole nuclear fuel cycle, which lets a country build a bomb later without building one now.
Each leader also sells a promise at home. American officials praised Field Marshal Asim Munir in public. Pakistan got higher tariffs anyway, and Pakistani exporters noticed.
Saudi officials kept Egypt out. They see it as a partner that lives on aid and adds little strength. Qatar is the better guess, because Qatari money already paid for an Indonesian warship from a Turkish yard.
India Seeks 150 New Trainer Aircraft
India asked industry for information on 150 lead-in fighter trainer (LIFT) aircraft. They will replace the BAE Hawk Mk 132. Leonardo, Korea Aerospace Industries, United Aircraft Corporation, Boeing and Saab will probably bid.
The Pakistan Air Force wanted a LIFT aircraft for almost 20 years. At IDEAS 2018, Air Chief Marshal Mujahid Anwar Khan asked for one with a modern radar and a tactical data link. AVIC then built the L-15B to match him.
Eight years later, Pakistan owns no LIFT aircraft.
It still flies the Super Mushshak, the T-37, the K-8 and the FT-7P. One FT-7P squadron does the LIFT job. Quwa’s demand tracker shows how wide the gap is.
Pakistan turned down other Italian equipment too. It refused the BriteCloud decoy, which now flies on the F-35. It refused the Grifo-E radar and an Elettronica jammer.
Pakistan could also have built a missile family with Italy, from the CAMM-ER. Denel offered the same chance from South Africa. EDGE Group hired the Denel engineers first.
Every one of those doors is now shut.
Who Owns the Software
Pakistan bought the J-10C with the PL-15 missile. That was a good decision, because Pakistan never helped design that aircraft.
The JF-17 is different. Pakistan paid for part of it so that it could pick its own radar, its own jammer and its own weapons.
The J-35 would take that back. Chinese firms sell a sealed package, not an open design. Türkiye sells the KAAN the other way, and invites partners who pay to join.
Arslan Khan has a blunt answer on the F-16: buy more F-16s. New Block 72 aircraft, older airframes with longer lives, and more J-10Cs and JF-17s beside them.
Europe lends money again through a fund called SAFE. Türkiye got its Eurofighter Typhoons once German and French objections stopped. BAE Systems needed the work.
The PAF’s next big buy starts in 2030. What Pakistan settles now on trainers, data links and suppliers will decide what it can buy then.
