Pakistan appoints former army general Nauman Mahmood as first head of Mecca alliance

The Mecca defence pact was signed on August 7

Pakistan on Wednesday appointed a former Pakistan Army officer as the first secretary-general of the country’s trilateral Mecca pact with Türkiye and Saudi Arabia.Lieutenant general Nauman Mahmood (retired) will head the alliance’s general secretariat, which is being established in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.“The government of Pakistan is pleased to announce the appointment of Lt Gen Nauman Mahmood, Hilal-i-Imtiaz (Military), (retired), as the first secretary general pursuant to the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement,” Pakistan’s Foreign Office said in a statement.Mahmood, who served in the military’s Baloch Regiment, previously commanded a key Pakistan Army corps in the country’s restive northwest and also served as president of the National Defence University in Islamabad.His appointment comes amid an escalation involving Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, the Yemeni rebels who have carried out attacks on Saudi territory in recent days and established control over the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea.Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Türkiye signed the Mecca pact on August 7.Modelled on Nato’s Article 5, the agreement establishes a framework for collective deterrence and stipulates that an armed attack against any one member would be regarded as an attack against all three.The alliance held its inaugural meeting on August 31 in Istanbul, Türkiye, where officials from the three member states met to establish its institutional structure. They decided that the first secretary-general would be from Pakistan, paving the way for Mahmood’s appointment.