{"id":8685,"date":"2026-08-31T23:08:32","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T18:08:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/?p=8685"},"modified":"2026-08-31T23:08:32","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T18:08:32","slug":"pakistan-saudi-arabia-and-turkiye-hold-first-high-level-meeting-under-makkah-defence-pact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/2026\/08\/31\/pakistan-saudi-arabia-and-turkiye-hold-first-high-level-meeting-under-makkah-defence-pact","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and T\u00fcrkiye hold first high-Level meeting under Makkah defence pact"},"content":{"rendered":"

Istanbul :<\/strong> Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and T\u00fcrkiye convened their first high-level meeting under the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement<\/strong> in Istanbul on Monday, bringing senior political and military officials from the three countries together for discussions on strategic and defence cooperation.<\/p>\n

Pakistan was represented by Chief of Army Staff (COAS) and Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir<\/strong>, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar<\/strong>, and Defence Minister Khawaja Asif<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the formal session, the foreign and defence ministers of the three countries, along with senior military officials, gathered for a group photograph at Ciragan Palace<\/strong> in Istanbul.<\/p>\n

T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s delegation included Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan<\/strong>, National Defence Minister Ya\u015far G\u00fcler<\/strong> and Chief of General Staff General Sel\u00e7uk Bayraktaro\u011flu<\/strong>, according to Anadolu Agency.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia was represented by Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan<\/strong>, Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman<\/strong> and Chief of General Staff General Fayyadh bin Hamed Al-Ruwaili<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Video footage released by Anadolu showed the delegations assembled inside the meeting venue, with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan seated at the centre. Fidan was also seen receiving Pakistan\u2019s representatives, including Ishaq Dar and Field Marshal Asim Munir, as they arrived.<\/p>\n

Pakistan\u2019s Foreign Office had announced on Sunday that the meeting was being convened by the Strategic Political and Defence Committee<\/strong>, established under the Makkah agreement.<\/p>\n

The Foreign Office said Pakistan\u2019s participation reflected its longstanding ties with T\u00fcrkiye and Saudi Arabia, as well as Islamabad\u2019s commitment to supporting peace and stability in the region.<\/p>\n

The first ministerial-level gathering is being viewed as an important step towards establishing a structured framework for closer trilateral coordination in strategic and defence affairs.<\/p>\n

According to Turkish media reports, the participants were also expected to discuss the proposed framework for a permanent secretariat and other institutional arrangements envisaged under the agreement. The three sides were further expected to work on a roadmap outlining the future direction of their cooperation.<\/p>\n

The Makkah Joint Defence Agreement<\/strong>, signed on August 7, states that aggression against one member would be treated as an attack against all three participating countries.<\/p>\n

Before the trilateral meeting, officials from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and T\u00fcrkiye held separate bilateral engagements in Istanbul.<\/p>\n

Field Marshal Asim Munir<\/strong> also met Turkish National Defence Minister Ya\u015far G\u00fcler<\/strong> ahead of the inaugural trilateral session. T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s Ministry of National Defence later shared footage of the meeting on its official social media account.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Istanbul : Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and T\u00fcrkiye convened their first high-level meeting under the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement in Istanbul on Monday, bringing senior political and military officials from the three countries together for discussions on strategic and defence cooperation. Pakistan was represented by Chief of Army Staff (COAS) and Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":8686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[160,2294],"class_list":["post-8685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-headline","tag-youdigital"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8687,"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8685\/revisions\/8687"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}