Pakistan, Saudi Arabia seal mutual defence pact
India said it will study implications of the deal and take all steps to protect the country’s interests and security.
India on Thursday reacted to the signing of a mutual defence pact by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia by saying that the government will take all steps to protect the country’s national interests and ensure comprehensive national security in all domains, reflecting concerns over the development.
The Indian side was aware that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia had been considering such a pact to formalise a long-standing arrangement between the two sides, external affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said.
On Wednesday, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman signed the “Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement” in Riyadh, and a joint statement by the two sides said the treaty states that “any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both”.
The agreement reflects the “shared commitment of both nations to enhance their security” and “aims to develop aspects of defence cooperation between the two countries and strengthen joint deterrence against any aggression”, according to the joint statement.
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Referring to the mutual defence pact between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, Jaiswal said: “The government was aware that this development, which formalises a long-standing arrangement between the two countries, had been under consideration.”
He added, “We will study the implications of this development for our national security as well as for regional and global stability. The government remains committed to protecting India’s national interests and ensuring comprehensive national security in all domains.”
The agreement marks what is perhaps Pakistan’s most consequential formal defence pact in several decades, and institutionalises the country’s role in the security architecture of West Asia. Over the past five decades, Saudi Arabia has worked to build up its defence relationship with Pakistan with an eye on benefiting from Islamabad’s nuclear arsenal.
The pact was also a signal from Saudi Arabia to the leadership of the US and Israel following the Benjamin Nethanyahu government’s attacks on Gaza and in neighbouring countries such as Qatar and Iran without facing any pushback from the Trump administration.
The Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement was signed in the aftermath of an emergency summit of Arab and Muslim nations hosted by Qatar following Israel’s military strikes on Hamas leaders based in Doha. The meeting brought together almost 60 countries that are members of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
Pakistan Army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, foreign minister Ishaq Dar and defence minister Khawaja Asif were part of the delegation that accompanied Sharif to Saudi Arabia.
Over the years, up to 20,000 Pakistani troops have been deployed to Saudi Arabia and Pakistani military personnel have helped train their Saudi counterparts in recent decades. Defence cooperation between the two sides goes back to 1967 and was enhanced after the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979, when Pakistan’s special forces helped Saudi troops clear the shrine after it was taken over by terrorists.
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia formalised security relations through a bilateral security cooperation agreement in 1982, which enabled Pakistani personnel to deploy and provide advisory support and training on Saudi soil.
The new agreement “formalises commitments that had long existed in practice, creating what some analysts saw as a de facto joint defensive umbrella though finer details of the agreement were not made public”, Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported. For Pakistan, the pact secures “vital Saudi investment and funding at a time of fiscal strain, while reinforcing Islamabad’s standing as a pan-Islamic security provider”, the report said.
In recent years, India has worked to bolster its defence cooperation with Saudi Arabia following the deepening of strategic and economic relations. The two countries conducted their maiden joint military exercise in Rajasthan in 2024 and have also done two naval exercises. Defence ties got a major boost in December 2020 when former Indian Army chief, Gen MM Naravane, visited Riyadh – the first such trip by an Indian service chief.
India signed its first defence contract with Saudi Arabia in February 2024, when state-run Munitions Indian Limited (MIL) supplied artillery ammunition worth $225 million. This was followed by another deal worth $80 million for artillery ammunition last year.
However, Saudi Arabia’s purchases of Pakistani military hardware are worth more, and Pakistan also reportedly has a sizeable number of its military personnel deployed in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, where retired personnel have been hired to train and support the local military.
