Saudi Arabia and Pakistan discuss joint defence after Iran attacks

The Saudi defence minister and Pakistani military officials met on Saturday to discuss how to best implement their joint defence pact in light of Iran's missile attacks on its neighbours.

During talks with Pakistani army chief Asim Munir, the sides examined possible measures to stop the strikes on Saudi Arabia, the Gulf state's Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman wrote on X. No further details were given.

A defence pact has been in place between the two countries since 2025. Accordingly, any attack on either state is considered an attack on both – allowing Saudi Arabia to in theory also receive protection from Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

In the wake of the US-Israeli strikes in Iran in the past week, Tehran responded with attacks on about a dozen neighbouring states, including on US military bases, but also on civilian targets such as airports and residential buildings.

A particularly large number of attacks were reported by the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The exchanges of attacks come about a week after the start of US-Israeli strikes on Iran.