(July 11, 2026 / JNS)
Pakistan has traditionally been viewed primarily through a South Asian lens: a nuclear-armed rival of India, a close partner of China, and a state deeply entangled in the politics of Afghanistan. However, Islamabad is increasingly inserting itself into the Middle Eastern strategic equation.
The clearest evidence has emerged in diplomacy between Washington and Tehran. In June 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif discussed working together to promote a “durable peace between Israel and Iran” following the IDF’s “Operation Rising Lion.” By 2026, Pakistan had become a key intermediary in negotiations between the United States and Iran, helping facilitate the process that produced the June 17 Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding.
Pakistan’s role has been openly acknowledged by regional powers. Speaking alongside Sharif in Istanbul in July, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan described the central role Pakistan played in mediating the recent U.S.-Iran ceasefire. “No solution that does not take strength from the will and contributions of regional countries can be lasting,” he said.
The Iran file is not an isolated case. Islamabad has also begun mediating between Libya’s rival power centers, with backing from the United States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey.
The pattern marks a broader shift. Pakistan is becoming a node linking Washington, Tehran, Riyadh and Ankara, bringing a nuclear-armed state that has never recognized Israel deeper into the strategic environment in which Israel operates.
The fall and rise of Pakistan
Pakistan’s emergence as a regional intermediary represents a sharp reversal from its position only a few years ago. Relations with Washington had deteriorated through years of disputes over Afghanistan, militancy and Pakistan’s ties to the Taliban. The discovery of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad further deepened mistrust, while successive U.S. administrations increasingly cultivated India as a strategic partner.
By late 2024, tensions had reached an unusual level. Washington sanctioned Pakistan’s state-run National Development Complex and three related firms over its long-range ballistic missile program. Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer subsequently described Pakistan as an “emerging threat” to the United States.
Pakistan was also economically vulnerable. In September 2024, it secured a $7 billion IMF bailout supported by financing assurances from China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Months later, the World Bank announced a decade-long $20 billion lending framework for the cash-strapped country.
The political turnaround has been closely associated with Field Marshal Asim Munir, Pakistan’s strongman military leader. Pakistani counter-terrorism cooperation helped reopen channels with Washington, particularly after Islamabad assisted in the capture of an ISIS-K suspect accused of involvement in the 2021 Kabul airport bombing. In June 2025, President Donald Trump hosted Munir at the White House and publicly praised his role in ending fighting with India. “This man was extremely influential in stopping it from the Pakistan side,” Trump said. Kabir Taneja, a fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, has similarly highlighted Munir’s role in Pakistan’s new rise. “Pakistan has found its way back into West Asia’s good graces and Field Marshal Munir has been pivotal to this design,” he wrote.
That rehabilitation has restored Pakistan’s principal strategic advantage: its ability to maintain ties across competing power centers. Islamabad combines close relations with China, renewed access in Washington and established connections across the Gulf. As the world’s only nuclear-armed Muslim-majority state, it also carries military weight few potential intermediaries can match. This combination ultimately provided the foundation for Pakistan’s growing role in the Middle East.
Pakistan and the Middle East
Pakistan’s emerging global diplomatic role is matched by a growing concrete military presence in the Gulf. Pakistan “is becoming more relevant as a flexible, mid-tier provider of defense capacity,” Dr. Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at King’s College London, told Reuters. Islamabad and Riyadh have maintained defense ties for decades, with Pakistani personnel providing operational, technical and training support to Saudi forces. But in September 2025, that relationship moved to a different level.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman signed the Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement in Riyadh. According to the Pakistani government, “The agreement states that any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both.”
The pact’s precise scope remains deliberately unclear. No full treaty text has been published, and Pakistani officials have given differing signals over whether the country’s nuclear arsenal is included. Asked directly about a possible nuclear umbrella, a senior Saudi official told Reuters: “This is a comprehensive defensive agreement that encompasses all military means.”
The 2026 Iran war demonstrated that the agreement was more than symbolic. Pakistan deployed roughly 8,000 troops, around 16 aircraft, mostly JF-17 Sino-Pakistani fourth-generation fighters, two drone squadrons and a Chinese HQ-9 air-defense system to Saudi Arabia. According to recent reports, the confidential pact provides for the possible deployment of up to 80,000 Pakistani troops.
For Riyadh, Pakistan offers military manpower, established institutional ties and the strategic weight of a military alliance with a nuclear-armed state. In this sense, the recent transformation in relations constitutes a profound shift in Pakistan’s role in the Middle East. Pakistan has moved from providing Saudi Arabia with training and assistance to holding a formal defense commitment backed by active wartime deployments. It is now part of the Gulf security architecture.
However, Pakistan’s expanding Middle Eastern role is not confined to Saudi Arabia. Islamabad has also built a close strategic relationship with Turkey, combining regular political coordination with growing defense cooperation. In July, Ankara and Islamabad agreed to deepen cooperation in defense and several other sectors, while pursuing a bilateral trade target of $5 billion.
The relationship has a substantial military-industrial component. Turkey’s MILGEM national warship program for Pakistan includes technology transfer and the construction of Babur-class corvettes using Turkish-origin radar, sonar and electro-optical systems. The broader defense relationship has continued to deepen, with senior Turkish officials explicitly calling in 2025 for stronger cooperation. Cooperation could eventually widen further. In January, Pakistan’s defense production minister told Reuters that Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey had prepared a draft trilateral defense agreement after nearly a year of talks. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan confirmed discussions had occurred but stressed that no agreement had been signed.
Pakistan’s position between Riyadh and Ankara is particularly significant because the latter two powers do not pursue identical regional strategies. Saudi Arabia has generally emphasized state stability and close ties with Washington, and has opposed the expansion of radical Sunni movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood. Meanwhile, Turkey has adopted a more assertive and expansionist regional posture, including incursions into Syria and support for terror groups such as Hamas. Yet Islamabad maintains close ties with both, while preserving working channels with Iran, which stands openly opposed to both Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Pakistan is therefore emerging not as the leader of a unified Sunni bloc, but as connective tissue between competing power centers. Its ability to operate simultaneously with Riyadh, Ankara and Tehran gives Islamabad a regional role few states can replicate.
Israel and Pakistan
Pakistan’s entrance onto the Middle Eastern stage constitutes an unwelcome development for Israel. Pakistan has never recognized Israel. Islamabad’s position has historically rested on the Palestinian issue, with successive governments insisting that recognition cannot precede a settlement establishing an independent Palestinian state. The relationship nevertheless briefly appeared more fluid in 2005, when Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri met Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom in Istanbul, the first publicly acknowledged official talks between the two countries. However, the position hardened again in subsequent years. In 2020, Prime Minister Imran Khan declared: “Pakistan will never recognize Israel until Palestinians are given their right to a just settlement.”
Since the Gaza war began, the language from Pakistan’s current leadership has become considerably stronger. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has repeatedly characterized Israel’s campaign in Gaza as genocide and described Israeli conduct as state terrorism extending back seven decades. In an official October 2024 statement, he accused Israel of oppression, illegal occupation and the massacre of Palestinians, while warning that Israeli actions were engulfing countries beyond Gaza.
Sharif maintained that line into 2025. Addressing the U.N. General Assembly, he condemned what he described as Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza. After an Israeli strike in Doha, Qatar, targeting senior Hamas leaders later that year, Sharif called for Islamic states to form a coordinated front against what Pakistan termed “growing Israeli adventurism.” His government described the attack as “heinous and unjustified” and argued that Israel’s “regional aggression” had to be stopped.
Islamabad has also condemned Israeli strikes on Iran and Lebanon as illegal aggression and violations of sovereignty and international law. Pakistan therefore enters its expanding Middle Eastern role with a longstanding refusal to recognize Israel and a leadership whose public rhetoric toward the country has grown markedly more hostile since 2023. “Hostility toward Israel is not merely a political matter, but a deep component of the country’s strategic identity. Therefore, any strengthening of Pakistan, militarily or diplomatically, must set off alarm bells in Jerusalem,” Dr. Oshrit Birvadker, a researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), warned in a recent interview.
However, Pakistan is not the only country expanding its geopolitical footprint and applying pressure. As Pakistan moves deeper into the Middle Eastern security system, Israel already has an extensive strategic relationship with Islamabad’s principal rival. India is Israel’s largest defense customer and imported roughly $2.9 billion in Israeli military hardware in the decade preceding 2024, including missiles, radars and drones.
Those ties are moving beyond arms sales. During Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s February visit to Israel, India and Israel agreed to pursue joint development, production and transfer of defense technology. One established example is the Barak-8/MRSAM air-defense family, jointly developed by India’s DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation) and Israel Aerospace Industries. DRDO reported four successful Indian Army flight tests in April 2025. Israeli industry is also embedded in Indian production through the Adani-Elbit venture, which manufactures Hermes 900 unmanned aircraft in Hyderabad. Birvadker and Col. (res.) Dr. Eran Lerman, vice president of JISS, argued that this increased cooperation ties directly back to Pakistan. “In coordination with Israel, India can counterbalance the deepening alignment between Turkey and Pakistan,” they argued in a recent analysis.
The result is an increasingly visible overlap between two previously distinct arenas. Israeli technology is incorporated into Indian military planning against Pakistan, while Pakistan is strengthening defense ties with Turkey and assuming a formal security role in Saudi Arabia. For Israel, India is therefore more than a major defense market. It is a long-term technological and strategic partner positioned directly opposite Pakistan, whose military and political role is increasingly extending into the Middle East. The relationships do not constitute two formal opposing alliances, but their interests and security networks increasingly overlap. For decades, Israel’s eastern strategic horizon largely ended at Iran. Pakistan’s emergence as a nuclear-armed military power increasingly embedded in Gulf defense and regional politics means that the horizon is now moving further east.
