Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed a trilateral defence agreement stating that an attack on one will be treated as an attack on all three.
The language deliberately echoes NATO’s Article 5.
Earlier today, three people were reportedly killed in a Houthi attack on a small cargo ship in the Red Sea in what would be the first deadly strike by the group on a vessel since the wider war began.
Meanwhile, Turkey and Pakistan fear instability spilling over their frontiers with Iran.
So should we see this pact as a hostile coalition assembling around Iran’s perimeter?
Or the early scaffolding of a regionally generated security order, whose eventual direction is undetermined—and whose biggest consequences may fall outside the Iran file entirely?
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