NEW DELHI: Barely a month after Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement on August 7, 2026, Riyadh has entered into a major energy partnership with Taliban government, raising questions over how far the much-publicised three-nation security alignment can translate into a common strategic position when the interests of its members diverge.
Saudi oil and gas company Delta International Energy has signed a $200 million contract with Taliban government to explore and extract hydrocarbons from the Kushk-Tirpul basin in the western part of the country. The agreement was signed in Kabul on September 7, 2026 by Taliban’s Mines and Petroleum Minister Hedayatullah Badri and Delta CEO Shaher Al-Taqi in the presence of senior Taliban leadership and former US special representative for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad.
The contract covers seven blocks spread across around 22,000 square kilometres in the Herat and Badghis provinces. The exploration period will run for eight years, while the overall contract is for 25 years. Kabul has described the project as an important step towards developing Afghanistan’s domestic energy resources and attracting foreign investment.
Badri said exploitation of the basin could eventually make Afghanistan self-sufficient in oil and gas. The Taliban authorities also presented the investment as part of a broader effort to use the country’s natural resources to generate employment, improve living standards and support economic growth.
The timing raises questions
The timing, however, gives the deal a wider geopolitical significance. On August 7, 2026, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, pledging to strengthen collective deterrence and defence cooperation. The agreement states that an armed attack against one of the three countries would be regarded as an attack against all three. The pact has subsequently been described in some quarters as an “Islamic NATO”, although its formal framework is the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement.
Yet the Saudi-Taliban energy agreement comes at a particularly sensitive moment in Pakistan-Afghanistan relations. Islamabad and Kabul have been at odds over security and border issues, making Riyadh’s decision to deepen economic engagement with Afghanistan an uncomfortable development for Pakistan.
The contrast has become even sharper following the recent Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia. On September 9, 2026, Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said the Makkah pact could become operational if the Yemen conflict spilled over into Saudi territory, reiterating that an attack on one member could be treated as an attack on all.
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Afghanistan: Un contrat a été signé entre une entreprise pétrolière saoudienne et le gouvernement afghan pour l’exploration de gisements de pétrole et de gaz en Afghanistan.pic.twitter.com/5b9LgQ077A— Restitutor Orientis 🇱🇮 (@restitutorII) September 7, 2026
However, Islamabad appeared more cautious the following day. On September 10, 2026, Foreign Office spokesperson Sajjad Haider Khan said there were no discussions at present about a military response under the Makkah agreement to the Houthi attacks, while insisting that Pakistan would act when the time came.
That hesitation comes as the pact faces its first serious test even before questions surrounding Afghanistan emerge. If the agreement’s collective-defence principle remains subject to political interpretation in the case of attacks on Saudi Arabia, its practical significance could be considerably narrower than the “Islamic NATO” label suggests.
An uncomfortable question for Islamabad
The Saudi-Afghan energy deal adds another complication. For Taliban, the agreement offers a potentially significant source of foreign capital and a long-term pathway towards developing its energy sector. Khalilzad called the investment an indication that Afghanistan was “ready for business”, while Taliban officials presented the project as evidence of the country’s potential as an energy and trade bridge between Central and South Asia.
For Pakistan, however, the development presents an uncomfortable strategic question. If tensions with Taliban were to escalate into a military confrontation, would Saudi Arabia’s new economic partnership with Kabul influence Riyadh’s position? Conversely, if Pakistan were attacked by Taliban, would the Makkah defence framework require Saudi Arabia to support Islamabad militarily, even while Saudi-linked companies maintain major long-term investments in Afghanistan?
The Makkah pact does not publicly provide an answer to such a scenario. That ambiguity exposes a potential weakness in portraying the agreement as a unified Sunni military bloc. Saudi Arabia can simultaneously deepen defence cooperation with Pakistan and Turkey while pursuing economic interests in Afghanistan. The energy agreement therefore suggests that Riyadh’s foreign policy may be driven less by a single ideological or military alignment and more by separate strategic, economic and regional calculations.
For Pakistan, the message is uncomfortable that the Makkah pact may provide security assurances, but it does not necessarily give Islamabad a veto over Saudi Arabia’s engagement with its regional rivals. The $200 million Afghan energy deal could therefore become an early test of how cohesive the much-touted Makkah alliance really is.
