New Delhi: US President Donald Trump’s endorsement of the new Mecca Joint Defence Agreement between Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan has raised questions about whether a new security bloc is emerging in West Asia or whether Washington is simply encouraging regional powers to take greater responsibility for their own security.
“US President Donald Trump has long been asking NATO allies to take greater responsibility for their own security. But there is an obvious contradiction. At the same time, he has welcomed an agreement in which countries are sharing responsibility for security rather than taking it entirely upon themselves.”
Now, three countries in West Asia are sending a similar message by seeking to develop their own security structure instead of depending entirely on the United States,” she said. Fazzur Rahman, a senior fellow at the Indian Council of World Affairs and a specialist in Middle East affairs, said, “Donald Trump has repeatedly emphasised that countries should take responsibility for their own security. He has said the same thing about NATO countries.
“This shows that the Middle East is coming together. These countries will be able to take much stronger steps to defend themselves. Congratulations to the great leadership of all three countries.
This is a big, strong and important step – wow,” he said.
The pact’s real test: the next India-Pakistan tensions
Rahman cites the limits of existing Saudi-Pakistani defence ties. “If Pakistan and India’s relations deteriorate to the worst possible level, it is very unlikely that Saudi Arabia would openly stand with Pakistan. Islamabad and Riyadh have a defence agreement, but we recently saw its limitations. As Javed Ali, an associate professor of practice at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, puts it, “I think the most important thing for India is to see what this agreement develops into, rather than assuming from the outset that it is a bloc against India. He added Pakistan’s international profile will be important for New Delhi, especially as security ties between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye grow. “The Mecca agreement could be another sign of this change.
When tensions arose between Afghanistan and Pakistan, Saudi Arabia did not openly support Pakistan,” he said. “India will also watch how China views this agreement and whether Beijing’s role changes in this context,” he said. Now the most important thing will be to see how these commitments work in practice, especially when one of these countries faces a major security crisis,” he said.
