Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and his Saudi Arabian counterpart, in a phone call on Sunday, discussed “follow-up” on the understanding reached at the inaugural meeting of the Makkah Defence Alliance, the Foreign Office (FO) said.

The joint defence pact, of which Turkiye is also a part, was signed on August 7 and empowers the member states to treat an attack against one of them as an attack against all of them. Its inaugural meeting was held on August 31 in Istanbul.

In a statement on social media platform X, FO said that DPM Dar held a phone call with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal Bin Farhan, during which the two discussed regional and international developments, including matters of mutual interest at multilateral fora.

“They also discussed follow-up on the understandings reached at the inaugural meeting of the Strategic Political and Defence Committee of the Makkah Defence Alliance, held in Istanbul, and agreed to remain in close contact,” FO said.

The tripartite agreement was signed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif during a summit at Al-Safa Palace.

Pakistan has said that the pact is “open to any country in the region” willing to uphold its fundamental principles.

Dar’s engagement with his Saudi counterpart comes over a week after the first meeting of the Strategic Political and Defence Committee of the Makkah Agreement, held in Istanbul.

In the meeting, which was attended by the foreign and defence ministers of the three countries, as well as top military officials, it was agreed to further institutionalise cooperation under the agreement to strengthen collective deterrence and defence. It was also decided that the alliance’s secretariat would be initially headed by Pakistan for three years and established in Saudi Arabia.

Abdelatty invites Dar to undertake bilateral visit to Egypt

Earlier in the day, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty invited DPM Dar to visit his country, FO said.

A statement issued by the FO said that the two held a telephone call in which they exchanged views on Egypt-Pakistan bilateral relations and regional and international developments.

Abdelatty invited Dar to “hold a bilateral visit to Egypt at his earliest convenience”, it added.

They also reaffirmed their commitment to remaining “engaged and involved” on regional security matters, agreeing to meet on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) this month.

Pakistan and Egypt are members of a quadrilateral regional alliance known as the R-4 Group (Regional Four), an arrangement which also includes Saudi Arabia and Turkiye. The R-4 group has been focused on regional security and emerged in March amid mediation efforts between the US and Iran.

Last November, the Egyptian foreign minister undertook an official two-day visit to Pakistan at DPM Dar’s invitation.

During the visit, he met Chief of Defence Forces and Chief of the Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir at the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi, where the two discussed “defence and security cooperation, military exchanges, training collaborations and regional peace and stability”, FO said at the time. Abdelatty also met President Asif Ali Zardari during the visit.