Saudi Arabia and nuclear–armed Pakistan signed a mutual defence pact late on Wednesday, significantly strengthening a decades-old security partnership a week after Israel’s strikes on Qatar upended the diplomatic calculus in the region.

The enhanced defense ties come as Gulf Arab states grow increasingly wary about the reliability of the United States as a security guarantor.

Asked whether Pakistan would now be obliged to provide Saudi Arabia with a nuclear umbrella, a senior Saudi official told Reuters: “This is a comprehensive defensive agreement that encompasses all military means.”

Pakistan is the only nuclear–armed, Muslim-majority nation, and also fields the Islamic world’s largest army, which it has regularly said is focused on facing down neighboring foe India.

The agreement was the culmination of years of discussions, the Saudi official said when asked about the timing of the deal. “This is not a response to specific countries or specific events but an institutionalization of long-standing and deep cooperation between our two countries,” the official added.

Israel’s attempt on Sept. 9 to kill the political leaders of Hamas with airstrikes on Doha, while they were discussing a proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza that Qatar is helping to mediate, infuriated Arab countries.

Before the Gaza war, Gulf monarchies – US allies – had sought to stabilize ties with both Iran and Israel to resolve longstanding security concerns. Over the past year, Qatar has been subjected to direct hits twice, once by Iran and once by Israel.

Israel is widely understood to possess a sizeable nuclear arsenal but maintains a policy of nuclear ambiguity, neither confirming nor denying possessing such weapons.

Pakistan had said its nuclear weapons are only aimed, as a deterrent, against India, and its missiles are designed with a range to hit anywhere to its east in India.

NUCLEAR UMBRELLA

Pakistani state television showed Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, embracing after signing the agreement. Also there was Pakistan‘s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, regarded as the country’s most powerful person.

“The agreement states that any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both,” a statement from the Pakistani prime minister’s office said.

Pakistan‘s decades-old alliance with Saudi Arabia – the site of Islam’s holiest sites – is rooted in shared faith, strategic interests and economic interdependence.

Pakistan has long had soldiers deployed in Saudi Arabia, currently estimated at between 1,500 and 2,000 troops, providing operational, technical and training help to the Saudi military. That includes assistance to the Saudi air and land forces.

Saudi Arabia has loaned Pakistan $3 billion, a deal extended in December, to shore up its foreign exchange reserves.

The Saudi deal comes months after Pakistan fought a brief military conflict with India in May.

India’s ministry of external affairs spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal said in a post on X on Thursday that India was aware of the development, and that it would study its implications for New Delhi’s security and for regional stability.

The senior Saudi official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, acknowledged the need to balance relations with Pakistan and India, also a nuclear power.

“Our relationship with India is more robust than it has ever been. We will continue to grow this relationship and seek to contribute to regional peace whichever way we can.”

Pakistan and India fought three major wars since the two countries were carved out of British colonial India in 1947.

After they both acquired nuclear weapons in the late 1990s, their conflicts have been more limited in scale because of the danger of nuclear assets coming into play.

European powers will likely reimpose international sanctions on Iran by the end of the month after their latest round of talks with Tehran aimed at preventing them were deemed not serious, France’s President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday.

Britain, France, and Germany, the so-called E3, launched a 30-day process at the end of August to reimpose UN sanctions. They set conditions for Tehran to meet during September to convince them to delay the “snapback mechanism.”

The offer by the E3 to put off the snapback for up to six months to enable serious negotiations is conditional on Iran restoring access for UN nuclear inspectors – who would also seek to account for Iran‘s large stock of enriched uranium – and engaging in talks with the US.

When asked in an interview on Israel’s Channel 12 whether the snapback was a done deal, Macron said:

“Yes. I think so because the latest news from the Iranians is not serious.”

E3 foreign ministers, the European Union foreign policy chief, and their Iranian counterpart held a phone call on Wednesday, in which diplomats on both sides said there had been no substantial progress, though the door was still open to try and reach a deal before the deadline expired.

The 15-member UN Security Council will vote on Friday on a resolution that would permanently lift UN sanctions on Iran – a move it is required to take after the E3 launched the process.

The resolution is likely to fail to get the minimum nine votes needed to pass, say diplomats, and if it did it would be vetoed by the United States, Britain, or France.

The United Arab Emirates could downgrade diplomatic ties with Israel if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government annexes part or all of the West Bank, but it is not considering the option of severing them completely, according to three sources briefed on the Gulf Arab state’s deliberations.

The UAE is one of just a few Arab states with diplomatic relations with Israel and downgrading ties would be a major setback for the Abraham Accords – a signature foreign policy achievement of US President Donald Trump and Netanyahu.

Israel‘s government has recently taken steps that could presage annexation of the West Bank, which was captured from Jordan along with East Jerusalem in a war in 1967. The United Nations and most countries oppose such a move.

For Netanyahu, whose coalition relies in part on right-wing nationalist parties, annexation could be seen as a valuable vote winner before an election expected next year.

NOT ALL TIES LIKELY TO BE CUT, SOURCE SAYS

Abu Dhabi warned Netanyahu’s coalition this month that any annexation of the West Bank would be a “red line” for the Gulf state but did not say what measures could follow.

The UAE, which established ties with Israel in 2020 under the Abraham Accords, was considering withdrawing its ambassador in any response, the sources told Reuters.

The sources, who all spoke on condition of anonymity, said Abu Dhabi was not considering completely severing ties, although tensions have mounted during the almost two-year-old Gaza War.

A source in Israel said the government believed it could repair its strained ties with the UAE, a major commercial center seen as the most significant of the Arab states to establish ties with Israel in 2020. The others were Bahrain and Morocco.

No other Arab state has since established formal ties with Israel, which also has diplomatic relations with Egypt and Jordan, and direct contacts with Qatar, though without full diplomatic recognition. Once-thriving business ties between the UAE and Israel have cooled due to the Gaza war and Netanyahu has yet to visit the Gulf state five years after establishing ties.

ISRAELI COMPANIES BARRED FROM UAE AIRSHOW

In a sign of growing tension with Israel, the Gulf state last week decided to bar Israeli defense companies from exhibiting at the Dubai Airshow in November, three of the sources said. Two other sources, an Israeli official and an Israeli defense industry executive, confirmed the decision.

Israel‘s defense ministry said it had been made aware of the decision but did not elaborate. A spokesperson for the Israeli embassy in Abu Dhabi said discussions over Israel‘s participation in the week-long trade show were continuing.

Israel‘s media were the first to report the move to block the firms from the UAE‘s flagship aerospace and defense event.

The UAE foreign ministry did not respond to questions on whether it was weighing downgrading diplomatic ties with Israel.

The spokesperson at the Israeli embassy in Abu Dhabi said that Israel was committed to the Abraham Accords and that it would continue to work towards strengthening ties with the UAE.

Emirati foreign ministry official Lana Nusseibeh had told Reuters and Israeli media on Sept. 3 that any annexation of the West Bank would jeopardize the Abraham Accords and end the pursuit of regional integration.

That warning preceded Israel‘s air strike on Qatar last week, which targeted Hamas leaders, an attack that Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, condemned.

At an emergency meeting of Muslim nations in Qatar, convened in response to the strike, a communique was issued urging countries to review diplomatic and economic ties with Israel.

As part of the Abraham Accords, Netanyahu promised to hold off annexing the West Bank for four years. But that deadline has passed and some Israeli ministers are now pressing for action.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich this month said that maps were being drawn up to annex most of the West Bank, urging Netanyahu to accept the plan. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, also backs annexing the territory.

TIES WITH ISRAEL DETERIORATED AFTER 2023

After establishing ties, the UAE and Israel built a close relationship, focusing on economic, security, and intelligence cooperation. This followed years of discreet contacts.

But differences began emerging after Netanyahu returned to power in 2023, leading the most right-wing government in Israel‘s history. Abu Dhabi has condemned repeated efforts by Ben-Gvir to alter the status quo of Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa compound to allow Jews to be able to pray there. The site is sacred to Muslims and Jews and at present non-Muslims can visit but cannot pray.

The UAE has also criticized Israel‘s policies in the West Bank, including the expansion of settlements, and its military campaign in Gaza, and said an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel was necessary for regional stability. Netanyahu this month declared there would never be a Palestinian state in the wake of Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.