Makkah Pact must expand to trade, technology, education: Ahsan

LAHORE: Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal said Thursday that the Makkah Pact linking Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye must expand beyond its military dimensions into a broader platform for trade, technology and education, arguing that Pakistan’s next major national challenge will be won through exports and innovation rather than weapons.

Speaking as chief guest at a conference on the pact hosted by the University of Lahore, Iqbal said the agreement, signed in Makkah on August 7, 2026 by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, commits each signatory to treat an attack on one as an attack on all three. He said the alliance’s real value lies in combining Saudi financial resources, Turkish industrial and defence capacity, and Pakistan’s youthful population and strategic geography into a wider framework covering artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, space technology and critical minerals.

Iqbal added that Pakistan’s security ultimately depends on economic strength, education and institutional reform, not military power alone, citing government targets of a one-trillion-dollar economy by 2035. He also announced that leaders of all Shanghai Cooperation Organisation member states are expected to visit Pakistan next year, while warning that recent diplomatic and defence gains could fade without sustained economic reform.

The event also featured former foreign ministers Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri and Jalil Abbas Jillani, Senator Sehar Kamran, Punjab Assembly Speaker Malik Ahmad Khan, and Ulema Council chief Hafiz Tahir Ashrafi, who described the Pakistan-Saudi defence relationship as a stabilising factor amid regional tensions, including recent Israeli military actions.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2026