Middle East Eye
Mar 5
Amid the escalating crisis, Iranian missile and drone attacks on Saudi targets have raised fresh questions in Islamabad about the obligations embedded in Pakistan’s recently signed strategic mutual defence agreement with Riyadh
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The recent turmoil in the Middle East has placed Pakistan in an unusually delicate strategic position. Following the coordinated strikes by the US and Israel against Iran and the killing of its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Tehran has retaliated by targeting several Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia.
However, amid the escalating crisis, Iranian missile and drone attacks on Saudi targets have raised fresh questions in Islamabad about the obligations embedded in Pakistan’s recently signed strategic mutual defence agreement with Riyadh.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Tuesday offered the clearest indication yet that the defence agreement may influence regional diplomacy.
Speaking at a press conference in Islamabad and later in parliament, Dar said he had directly raised the pact in conversations with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
“We have a defence pact with Saudi Arabia, and I conveyed this to the Iranian side,” Dar said, describing recent diplomatic contacts. According to him, Tehran responded by seeking assurances that Saudi territory would not be used as a launchpad for attacks against Iran.
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Dar also suggested that the understanding may already be shaping Iran’s calculations. “You can compare that the least attacks from Iran are against Saudi Arabia and Oman,” he said, crediting diplomatic engagement for preventing wider escalation.
His comments marked one of the first public acknowledgements by a senior Pakistani official that the defence pact could apply in a confrontation involving Iran.
First geopolitical test of the pact
The crisis represents the first serious geopolitical test of the pact, signed during Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s state visit to Saudi Arabia in September.
Although the agreement was presented as a framework for defence cooperation, its core clause carries potentially far-reaching implications: aggression against one state is to be treated as aggression against both.
At the centre of the agreement is a principle similar in structure to Nato’s Article 5, which details the collective defence obligations.
Official statements from both governments describe the pact as stipulating that “any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both”. In theory, such language suggests that Pakistan could be obliged to assist if Saudi Arabia comes under sustained attack.
So far, neither Islamabad nor Riyadh has formally invoked the pact. But the current crisis has brought it into public discussion in ways that were previously avoided.
For Pakistan, a country with close ties to Saudi Arabia, a long border with Iran, and a complex sectarian landscape at home, the stakes of that commitment are unusually high.
Yet the agreement appears deliberately ambiguous in practice.
Pakistani officials say it does not automatically require military intervention and allows each country to determine the form of support according to national interests and capabilities.
Zahid Shahab Ahmed, an associate professor in security and strategic studies at the National Defense College of the United Arab Emirates, said that if the war is prolonged, Saudi Arabia might ask Pakistan to help militarily.
“In such a situation, Pakistan is in a stand-by mode and is not positioned to deny support to Saudi Arabia,” Ahmed told Middle East Eye.
A section of experts also believes Pakistan was being used as a diplomatic channel between the two regional rivals, reflecting Islamabad’s longstanding ties with both Riyadh and Tehran.
Ayesha Siddiqa, a London-based Pakistani defence analyst, said Saudi Arabia appeared “reluctant to become directly involved in the conflict despite Iranian strikes on its territory”.
“And therefore Riyadh has been asking Islamabad to convey the message to Tehran not to attack our soil, as we are not involved in the conflict,” she said.
The India threat
Pakistan’s room to manoeuvre is also significantly shaped by its own security environment.
The country is currently managing multiple internal and regional security pressures, including cross-border tensions with Afghanistan’s Taliban administration.
The conflict has required sustained military deployments along Pakistan’s western frontier, where militant attacks and border clashes have intensified in recent months.
At the same time, the long-standing rivalry with India continues to dictate defence planning. Former military officials said that the bulk of Pakistan’s conventional military capability remains oriented towards the eastern border, where the armed forces maintain significant troop concentrations and high operational readiness.
Consequently, any substantial deployment to support Saudi Arabia would “require a risky reallocation of resources”, according to an Islamabad-based retired military official.
Security officials and experts remain divided over what specific assistance Riyadh might request.
While some suggest a full military deployment is possible in extreme circumstances, most view limited support, such as intelligence-sharing, naval patrols in the Arabian Sea, or technical air defence cooperation, as far more realistic.
A high-stakes balancing act
The partnership with Riyadh serves as a critical financial lifeline for Islamabad. More than four million Pakistanis working in the Gulf remit billions of dollars annually, providing a vital cushion for Pakistan’s depleted foreign exchange reserves.
Beyond these transfers, Saudi Arabia has frequently stabilised Pakistan’s recurring economic crises with central bank deposits, deferred oil payments, and ambitious investment pledges.
On Wednesday, Saudi officials pledged to continue supplying Pakistan with oil through the Red Sea route.
The security dimension is equally entrenched. Pakistani military personnel have provided training and advisory support to the kingdom for decades. Importantly, the Saudi-led Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition is currently headed by Pakistan’s former army chief, General Raheel Sharif.
However, this “special relationship” is under increasing strain as regional tensions with Iran escalate.
For Islamabad, any military alignment against Tehran carries a high domestic cost. Approximately 15 to 20 percent of Pakistan’s 240 million people are Shia Muslims, many of whom maintain deep cultural and religious ties to Iran.
In recent days, the government has faced domestic backlash over its perceived neutrality towards western and Israeli actions against Tehran.
Senator Allama Raja Nasir Abbas, an opposition figure in Pakistan’s parliament and head of a major Shia political party, said that the government should issue “an explicit condemnation” of Israel and the United States and formally affirm “Iran’s right to defend its sovereignty”.
Violent protests by Shia groups broke out in several Pakistani cities, including Karachi and Islamabad, on Sunday after Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in US-Israeli strikes. At least 23 people were killed during the unrest on that day.
“If the government sides with Saudi Arabia against Iran, it will create deep resentment within the country,” said Askari, a protester in Islamabad who chose to use only his first name.
But the threat of domestic sectarian unrest is an element Pakistan will have to balance when push comes to shove.
“We understand the sentiments on the street,” a senior Pakistani security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “But the state must act according to long-term national interests.”
However, some analysts say Pakistan confronting Iran in defence of Saudi Arabia would not serve Islamabad’s interests.
“Concerns were raised when Pakistan signed the security pact with Saudi Arabia, even as Pakistan’s rulers were celebrating the agreement,” said Siddiqa, the analyst. “Entering the factionalised politics of the Middle East is not in Pakistan’s favour.”
“Don’t forget that after Iran, the largest population of Shias is in Pakistan,” she added, warning that opening multiple fronts would be a dangerous situation for the country.
“This is not peacetime, this is wartime. How can Pakistan facilitate friendship [between Saudi Arabia and Iran] right now?” she said.
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