Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye Reaffirm Collective Defence Pact After Houthi Attacks on Saudi Arabia

The Makkah Joint Defence Agreement is a treaty signed in 2026 by three countries: Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye. Under this agreement, if any one of these three countries is attacked, the other two treat it as an attack on themselves too. This is called a "mutual defence" or "collective defence" promise. The agreement was signed on 7 August 2026, in the holy city of Makkah (Mecca) in Saudi Arabia, which is why it carries that name.

The Houthis are an armed political group from Yemen, a country at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Their official name is Ansar Allah, which means "Supporters of God." They follow the Zaidi branch of Shia Islam, a minority sect found mostly in northern Yemen. Since 2014, the Houthis have controlled the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, and much of northern Yemen, even though the internationally recognised Yemeni government does not accept their rule.

Key Details

• The movement began in the early 1990s as a peaceful religious revival group called "Believing Youth," founded by Hussein al-Houthi to counter the spread of Saudi-backed Sunni religious teaching in Yemen.
• After Hussein al-Houthi was killed by Yemeni government forces in 2004, the group turned into an armed insurgency, fighting on and off with the Yemeni government through the 2000s.
• The Houthis captured Sanaa, Yemen's capital, in September 2014, which triggered a large military intervention by a Saudi Arabia-led coalition of countries starting in March 2015, acting in support of Yemen's internationally recognised government.
• On 14 April 2015, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2216, which demanded the Houthis stop fighting, withdraw from captured areas, and give up seized weapons, and imposed an arms embargo (a ban on selling weapons) on Houthi and allied forces.
• Since the Gaza conflict escalated in October 2023, the Houthis have fired missiles and drones at Israel and at ships passing through the Red Sea, and have periodically struck targets inside Saudi Arabia, saying these attacks are a show of solidarity with Palestinians.

These are two different ways that countries try to prevent wars, and UPSC often tests students on telling them apart. Collective security means a wide, general agreement, ideally among most or all countries in the world, that an attack on any one country is treated as a threat to peace everywhere, and the whole group may act together against whoever caused it. Collective defence means a smaller, specific group of allied countries who promise, through a treaty, to defend one another if any of them is attacked.

Key Details

• Collective security is the founding idea behind both the League of Nations (formed 1920, after World War I) and the United Nations (formed 1945). It is built into the UN Charter, especially Chapter VII, which allows the UN Security Council to take collective action, including the use of force, against an aggressor.
• Collective defence comes from Article 51 of the UN Charter, which recognises that any country has an "inherent right of individual or collective self-defence" if it is attacked, until the Security Council itself takes action. Countries use this article as the legal basis for signing mutual defence treaties.
• The best-known example of collective defence is Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO, formed 1949), which says an armed attack on one member in Europe or North America is an attack on all.
• The main practical difference: collective security is meant to work against any aggressor, including possibly a member of the same group, while collective defence is a closed club where members promise to protect each other, usually against outside threats.