The Foreign Office (FO) said on Friday Lieutenant General (retd) Nauman Mahmood is expected to assume office of secretary general of the Makkah Defence Alliance in Riyadh soon.
FO spokesperson Sajjad Haider Khan said Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye would jointly decide when to convene a meeting of the alliance, established under the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement signed on August 7.
The pact allows the three countries to treat an armed attack on any member as an attack against all.
The development comes amid Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia. Pakistan has pledged necessary support to defend the kingdom, while military officials have emphasised that the alliance is exclusively defensive.
Khan also reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to facilitating dialogue between Iran and the United States, saying Islamabad and other regional countries were actively pursuing diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict.
He stressed that lasting regional peace required political dialogue rather than military confrontation and accused Israel’s expansionist policies of contributing to instability across the Middle East.
Commenting on the US midterm elections, the spokesperson described them as an internal matter of the United States and reiterated that Pakistan maintained close relations with Washington.
