A treaty can be signed in a day. A trading bloc takes a generation. On 7th August 2026, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye signed the Makkah Joint Defence…
A treaty can be signed in a day. A trading bloc takes a generation. On 7th August 2026, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, which treats an armed attack on any of them as an attack on all. Commentators have dubbed it the “Mecca Defence Alliance.” It is a defence treaty, not an economic bloc, and the difference matters. Together the three economies are worth roughly $3 trillion.
Yet Pakistan’s annual trade with Turkiye stands at only $1.3–1.5 billion, and with Saudi Arabia at around $4–5 billion. The distance between their strategic ambition and their commercial reality is the real story. If the Muslim world is serious about collective influence, the next move must be […]
This is a source-linked briefing. Read the original report from Middle East Monitor .