The South Caucasus and Central Asia; A New Arena of Transit Competition

SCFR Online - Opinion: Developments in the South Caucasus and Central Asia indicate that transit competition has become an arena for a new staging of influence among Iran, Turkey, Russia, and China.

Sina Raimand – International affairs expert

The Shift in the Balance of Connectivity

The security developments between Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan, along with the relative decline of Russia’s role following the Ukraine war, have altered the geopolitical environment surrounding Iran. In its 2026-2031 five-year plan, Armenia no longer describes relations with Russia as a “strategic alliance,” and Russia has been placed after the Republic of Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iran, Georgia, the European Union, the United States, and France in the order of this country’s foreign policy priorities. Simultaneously, the future of Russia’s military base in Gyumri has faced uncertainties. These developments do not mean Russia’s immediate exit from the Caucasus, but they indicate a decline in Moscow’s traditional monopoly over the region’s security environment.

For Iran, any change in the Caucasus security balance is directly linked to the country’s connectivity geography. The weakening of Russia’s monopoly, on one hand, can create more space for Tehran, but on the other hand, the increased role of Turkey and the Republic of Azerbaijan in transit networks can strengthen routes that may not necessarily align with Iran’s interests.

The So-called Zangezur Corridor and the Middle Corridor; Competition over “Connectability”

The competition between Iran’s North-South Corridor and the Middle Corridor is not merely a competition between two railway lines. The Middle Corridor, passing through China and Central Asia, the Caspian Sea, the Republic of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey, is transforming into a multi-layered network of transportation, energy, digital communications, and investment. In 2025, the Republic of Azerbaijan gained full participation in the consultative meetings of Central Asian heads of state, and in the summer of 2026, it expanded its relations with Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and other Central Asian countries. This trend indicates that Baku is seeking to transform from a transit country in the Caucasus into a connecting link between the Caucasus, the Caspian, and Central Asia.

In this framework, projects related to the so-called Zangezur corridor should be seen as part of a broader architecture of regional connectivity. The connection of the Republic of Azerbaijan’s mainland to Nakhchivan through southern Armenia, if implemented, could create a more direct link between the Republic of Azerbaijan, Turkey, and the Middle Corridor network; therefore, the issue is not merely the passage of a railway line, but the possibility of forming a network that reduces Iran’s share in connecting the Caucasus to Central Asia and Europe.

In contrast, Iran, to prevent such a situation, has pursued a strategy of “route diversification.” The Russian International Affairs Council’s analysis of Iran’s transit policy considers the routes passing through the Republic of Azerbaijan as well as the Iran-Armenia-Georgia route as complementary to each other and emphasizes the importance of developing the Rasht-Astara railway and linking the northern corridors with Iran’s southern ports and networks.

Turkey; Developing Geopolitical Capacity Beyond Balancing

The increase in Turkey’s role cannot be explained merely by the concept of “balancing between East and West.” A recent study by the German SWP Institute emphasizes that the more important issue is Ankara’s ability to practically utilize its diverse relations; that is, how Turkey uses various capacities to increase its role in the surrounding environment.

This issue becomes more important in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Turkey’s cultural and linguistic ties with the group known as the Turkic-speaking republics, alongside investment, defense cooperation, energy, and transportation, enable Ankara to strengthen its influence through a network of connections. From the perspective of critics of Turkey’s policy, this trend can also be linked to pan-Turkist readings; however, analytically, it is better to consider it a set of geopolitical, economic, and identity instruments.

At the same time, Turkey’s internal changes and the new process related to the disarmament of the PKK can also increase Ankara’s regional room for maneuver. The Russian International Affairs Council considers this process to have implications for Iraq, Syria, and Iran’s surrounding environment.

China; Capital, Network, and Reproduction of Dependency

In this competition, China plays a role more by linking existing networks to its economy than by creating a single corridor. A clear example is the activation of the China-Central Asia-Iran railway route; the first train, comprising 55 wagons from Xinjiang, entered Kazakhstan and is scheduled to reach Iran via Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. The continuation of this process can increase Iran’s connectivity capacity to China’s overland network and turn Central Asia into an important link in Iran-China trade.

On the other hand, Kazakhstan is consolidating its position as a “middle power” and a connector of China, Russia, Europe, Turkey, and other centers of power. The Trans-Caspian route for Astana is not merely a transportation route and is linked with logistics, customs digitalization, and peripheral industries. This situation indicates that China and Central Asian actors are not necessarily seeking to choose between rival corridors and are trying to use the overlap of routes to increase their bargaining power.

Sanctions; A Determining Factor in Transit Competition

One of the most important limitations of these routes is US extraterritorial sanctions. Recent reports on Central Asia warn that secondary sanctions can complicate even exchanges that are not legally prohibited; because banks, insurance, and transportation companies may excessively avoid cooperation with routes related to Iran to reduce risk. In such circumstances, building a railway or port alone is not sufficient for the success of a transit route, and the necessary financial and insurance system for its use must also exist.

This issue also extends to China’s relations with Iran. Using Central Asia to transfer goods to Iran can reduce the vulnerability of some exchanges, but at the same time, it exposes intermediary countries to more sanctions pressures. As a result, the success of Iran’s corridors depends as much on infrastructure as on the ability of Tehran and its partners to manage sanctions risk.

The Desirable Strategy

In such circumstances, Iran’s realistic strategy should be to prevent itself from becoming the “eliminated link” in the new architecture of Eurasian connectivity. The realization of this goal requires measures such as accelerating the Rasht-Astara project, developing railway and road connections to Central Asia, strengthening southern ports and linking them to the north, activating the Iran-Armenia-Georgia route, and creating financial and insurance arrangements to reduce the impact of sanctions.

At the diplomatic level as well, Tehran can simultaneously engage with Baku, Yerevan, Astana, Ankara, Moscow, and Beijing and arrange the scene in such a way that competition does not turn into a “zero-sum game.” Cooperation with the Republic of Azerbaijan on complementary routes and dialogue with Armenia on transportation arrangements can also help preserve Iran’s options.

Ultimately, the transit competition in the Caucasus and Central Asia is more about controlling the “connectivity network” than about seizing a single corridor. If Iran can simultaneously activate several complementary routes and maintain its position in the network of China, Central Asia, Russia, and the Caucasus, regional developments will not necessarily lead to a reduction in its geopolitical depth. Otherwise, the combination of Turkey’s increasing influence, the cross-border connectivity of the Republic of Azerbaijan and Central Asia, and China’s capital and network can shift part of Iran’s geographical advantage in favor of rivals.

When European Elites Run Out of Answers, They Blame Muslims

Waseem Shehzad

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has apparently discovered another grave threat confronting one of Europe’s largest economies: the burqa.

Speaking at a Brothers of Italy youth gathering on September 20, Meloni announced plans to ban burqas and niqabs in schools, limit the number of foreign students in classrooms and require some foreign parents to learn Italian.

There are legitimate debates about integration and language in public institutions. But the political significance of Meloni’s announcement lies elsewhere. It illustrates Europe’s accelerating retreat from serious socioeconomic politics toward the politics of fear and convenient scapegoating.

Italy has problems considerably larger than the number of Muslim girls wearing niqab.

Some 5.7 million Italians were living in absolute poverty in 2024. Italy simultaneously faces weak productivity, depressed real wages, enormous public debt, aging population and a collapsing fertility rate. Its healthcare system faces serious staffing and funding pressures, while younger Italians struggle with insecure employment and housing costs.

None of these problems will be solved by removing the niqab from classrooms. That is precisely why the niqab is politically so useful.

The politics of a convenient enemy

Across Europe, ruling establishments face structural problems requiring politically difficult solutions.

Affordable housing requires construction and public investment. Healthcare requires doctors, nurses and sustained funding.

Industrial competitiveness requires infrastructure, affordable energy and long-term planning. Poverty requires productive employment and redistribution.

None provides an instant political spectacle.

A Muslim woman wearing distinctive clothing does.

France faces weak growth, enormous public debt, pressure on purchasing power and chronic fiscal difficulties. Germany’s once-vaunted industrial model struggles with high energy costs, demographic pressures, deteriorating infrastructure and years of inadequate investment.

Berlin elections illustrated the contradiction perfectly. Rents have soared while the city estimates that another 211,000 houses will be required by 2040.

That is not a hijab problem. It is not a mosque problem. It is a housing-policy problem.

But constructing hundreds of thousands of houses is difficult. Blaming immigrants for their absence is easy.

Berlin is a signal

That is why Berlin’s September 20 election deserves attention beyond Germany.

Approximately 1.85 million Berliners participated. Die Linke received about 468,000 second votes, or 25.7%, while the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) received approximately 296,000, or 16.3%.

The simultaneous advance of forces conventionally described as the far left and far right is more significant than the labels themselves.

Results in Berlin should be understood as a signal that the European political elites are detached from their societies.

In a situation where declining public services, housing shortages, economic insecurity and stagnation persist, while the ruling regimes deflect by popularizing cultural battles for socioeconomic solutions, political and social crisis are inevitable.

How “far” is Europe’s far right?

There is also something increasingly artificial about Europe’s distinction between a supposedly respectable political mainstream and the “far right.”

On Muslims, immigration, asylum and national identity, the more revealing question is increasingly not whether European politics has moved rightward, but how far rightward different political actors are or are prepared to travel.

Positions once confined to the margins have steadily migrated into establishment discourse.

Mass deportations, restrictions on Islamic clothing, mosque financing, “political Islam,” border closures and endless debate about whether Muslims are culturally compatible with Europe were and are a routine feature of mainstream politics.

The supposedly impermeable wall separating respectable conservatism from the radical right increasingly resembles a revolving door.

The road to 2026 began in 2001

None of this emerged with the rise of Meloni, Marine Le Pen or the AfD. The ideological infrastructure was constructed over decades.

September 11, 2001, was a decisive turning point. The US-led war of terror transformed the vocabulary through which Muslims were discussed by western regimes.

Muslims increasingly became objects of security policy. Mosques became objects of surveillance. Muslim organizations were discussed through the language of radicalization. Islamic clothing became a political issue. Immigration, terrorism, Islam and demographic anxiety were gradually fused into the same political conversation.

The far right, therefore, did not have to invent an entirely new discourse. It inherited one from the so-called mainstream.

For a quarter-century, western political and media establishments helped normalize the treatment of Muslims as an exceptional category requiring surveillance, integration tests and perpetual demonstrations of loyalty.

What today’s right-wing parties did was remove many of the qualifications.

Ideas initially presented through the sanitized language of counter-terrorism, security and integration could eventually be articulated openly as hostility toward Islam, immigration and multiculturalism.

The political fringe learned to speak a language the establishment had spent two decades teaching Europeans to understand.

Fear has a political economy

There is another dimension that should not be overlooked. Europe’s increasingly militarized political atmosphere also produces economic winners.

A BBC report subtly popularized the concept of how Europe’s struggling automobile industry might find salvation through rearmament. European manufacturers confronting weak demand, industrial overcapacity and intense international competition are examining military production as another source of business.

BBC’s headline captured the emerging logic perfectly: “Europe’s car makers are in crisis. Will the threat of war rescue them?”

Once hundreds of billions of euros begin flowing toward weapons, military vehicles and defence industries, militarization ceases to be merely a foreign-policy question.

Corporations, investors, contractors and industrial regions develop a material interest in maintaining military expenditure.

For sections of Europe’s business elites, therefore, crisis is not necessarily bad for business.

Crisis is often the business model.

This does not require imagining a conspiracy in which European industrialists manufacture Islamophobia simply to sell weapons. The relationship is more structural.

A society saturated with fear is easier to militarize. And militarization has beneficiaries.

Here the post-9/11 construction of Muslims as a permanent security problem becomes particularly significant.

After 25 years during which Muslims have repeatedly been associated with terrorism, radicalization, extremism and security threats, they constitute an unusually convenient population around which politics of insecurity can be constructed.

The Muslim immigrant becomes a cultural threat at home. The mosque becomes a security concern. Migration becomes an invasion metaphor. Muslim-majority regions become theatres of permanent instability requiring western military intervention.

Fear generates political capital. Militarization generates economic capital. The two increasingly reinforce each other.

When the establishment runs out of answers

This helps explain why establishment parties increasingly borrow rhetoric from parties they publicly condemn.

A regime unable to provide affordable housing can promise tougher borders.

A political establishment unable to restore purchasing power can regulate Muslim clothing.

Parties incapable of explaining why younger generations face increasingly insecure economic futures can provide them with a visible cultural antagonist.

The immigrant becomes the explanation. Muslim becomes the symbol. Hijab becomes the battlefield.

While Europe faces genuine issues concerning immigration, asylum and integration, serious societies should discuss them seriously. Immigration cannot become the universal explanation for structural failure.

Italy’s poverty will not disappear if Meloni removes niqabs from schools. Berlin’s housing shortage will not be rectified because Germany deports more refugees.

France’s public debt will not shrink because another restriction is imposed on Islamic clothing.

Germany’s trains will not suddenly arrive on time because politicians deliver another speech about “integration.”

These problems require investment, industrial strategy, redistribution and competent governance.

Identity politics offers something considerably cheaper: an enemy.

This is why Europe’s political landscape is not simply shifting rightward. It is undergoing a deeper political regression in which increasingly crude identity politics substitutes for serious socioeconomic policy while the material conditions generating public anger remain unresolved.

The burqa is politically useful precisely because it cannot answer for Europe’s poverty, stagnant productivity, housing shortages, deteriorating infrastructure or public debt.

And when ruling establishments repeatedly substitute convenient enemies for difficult solutions, the underlying anger does not disappear. It accumulates.

Combine all of the above with the fact that zionist Israel is openly advocating for meddling in European socio-political processes to undermine Muslims, the future is not difficult to predict, a Europe heading for severe internal destabilization.

No Future for Pakistan Under the Heavy Boot of the Military

Zia Sarhadi

Like most states in Asia and Africa, Pakistan emerged from the bowels of British colonialism. While the idea was sound, its implementation was flawed, at several levels and has continued to bedevil the state ever since.

Pakistan emerged as a new state on the world map in 1947, as did India. The latter’s boundaries have always been flexible, depending on any particular ruler. Thus, the present-day map of India is also a British construct.

The British Indian army had a large contingent of Muslims in its ranks. They played no role in the creation of Pakistan. Yet, once Pakistan came into existence, they started to demand an ever-larger share of state resources.

Today, the military has monopolised all power and decision-making. It no longer asks for a share in the budget; it grabs what it wants and more. After all, if the gods of Rawalpindi are the real masters of Pakistan, why ask their civilian-puppets for handouts?

Ayub Khan was the first Pakistani-born commander-in-chief of the armed forces. He has written with great pride in his book, Friends Not Masters (it was actually ghost-written for him by his press secretary Altaf Gauhar), that Muslim officers in the British Indian army, true to their professionalism, remained strictly neutral during the partition of the subcontinent.

Their ‘neutrality’ resulted in the slaughter of more than one million Muslim men, women and children at the hands of Hindu and Sikh gangs. Ayub Khan’s incompetence as a military officer was well-known but he was a master political intriguer. He became the first general to grab power, setting a precedent for future military coups that have plagued Pakistan ever since.

Following Ayub Khan’s coup of October 1958, he elevated himself to the rank of ‘Field Marshal’. Does it sound familiar?

Today, Asim Munir has assumed all powers and acts as the chief of all branches of the armed forces. He also acts as prime minister, interior minister, foreign minister, chief justice and mufti-in-chief dishing out certificates of shahadahs to soldiers who die in Munir-instigated wars against other Muslims.

Long before his coup, Ayub had started indulging in political intrigue and inserted himself into the decision-making process of the country. His successors have buried their claws deeper into the body politic of Pakistan through intrigue, threats and outright gangsterism.

Let us list some of the horrors the men in khaki of grade-12 education have perpetrated in Pakistan.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the man who led the Pakistan movement, was seriously ill at the time of its creation. He had tuberculosis but it was kept a tightly-guarded secret.

In September 1948, he was returning from Quetta to Karachi. A military ambulance at Mauripur Airbase was arranged to take him to the Government House in Karachi. It broke down on the way, running out of gas or due to engine trouble. The critically ill Jinnah was left stranded in the stifling heat for over an hour before a replacement vehicle arrived.

Was the ambulance breakdown a deliberate attempt to get rid of the highest official in the country, the governor general? Jinnah was upright, honest and followed the law strictly. Such qualities were an obstruction to the opportunists’ ambitions who had jumped on the Pakistan bandwagon just before partition.

Jinnah’s sister, Fatima Jinnah decided to run against Ayub Khan in the presidential elections of 1964-1965. The military dictator, now calling himself ‘field marshal’, had rigged the system by imposing what was called ‘Basic Democracy’.

It was an indirect way of electing the president. Ayub believed the masses were too stupid to know who was best to rule the country. Fatima Jinnah was a strong critic of military rule and insisted that proper democracy should be established where the opinion of the people is respected.

Ayub and his henchmen launched a vicious campaign of slander against Fatima Jinnah. Many of the allegations were quite vulgar but when the aim is to get the head honcho back into power despite the rigged system, then nothing is considered too low.

Fatima Jinnah died in mysterious circumstances in July 1967. There are some who believe she was murdered on the orders of Ayub Khan. No official inquiry has been conducted into her death despite calls from several quarters. The ladies who washed her body before burial said there were stab wounds on her body.

Pakistan is one of those strange entities where anyone critical of the person in power is branded a ‘traitor’. This was true of Fatima Jinnah as well as Shaikh Mujibur Rahman.

The Awami League, the party led by Shaikh Mujib, won the 1970 general elections grabbing all seats in East Pakistan. The West Pakistani feudal lords-turned politicians and the military, however, were not prepared to relinquish their hold on power. Mujib was denounced as a ‘traitor’.

To teach the upstart Bengalis a lesson, the army was unleashed against them in March 1971. After slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent people, the army surrendered in a disgraceful manner to the invading Indian army.

For the thuggish West Pakistani generals, it was preferrable to surrender to arch-enemy India than respect the wishes of the people. This was even more critical if power was to go to the Bengalis of East Pakistan.

The generals learned the wrong lesson from their East Pakistan debacle. Instead of ending their interference in politics and withdrawing to the barracks, they intensified their involvement.

They attributed their defeat in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) to 1,000 miles of hostile enemy territory that separated them. What is left of Pakistan is compact. So, the army can now launch more vicious wars against the people.

This is what is being witnessed in Balochistan, KP province and now in Azad Kashmir and Gilgat Baltistan. Anyone critical of army interference in politics is, by definition, a ‘traitor’.

There is also another criterion the army applies. Anyone who is sincere and helps Pakistan must be humiliated and removed. Take the case of M M Alam, a fighter pilot and hero of the Pakistan air force. He shot down five enemy planes in one encounter and another five for a total of 10 planes in the September 1965 war against India. This is a world record.

What did Pakistan do to him? In 1982, there were reports that then air chief Anwar Shamim was involved in embezzlement of funds. M M Alam, now promoted to the rank of Air Commodore, wrote to the air chief and asked him to set up an inquiry to clear his name.

Far from clearing his name, Air Marshal Shamim wrote to General Zia to dismiss M M Alam whom he accused of being a ‘Bengalis’ (Alam was a Bihari and had stayed back in Pakistan instead of going to Bangladesh). Zia dismissed Alam in 1982 and protected his corrupt colleague, Anwar Shamim.

M M Alam was thoroughly dejected—nay disgusted—at such mistreatment. He realized that being a hero or honest were not virtues in Pakistan. Keeping one’s mouth and eyes shut about corruption were preferable and often led to rewards.

Then there is the saga of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, popularly known as the “father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb”. He had obtained a PhD in nuclear physics and metallurgy and worked in Belgium. Following India’s first nuclear explosion of May 1974—dubbed by the west, a “peaceful nuclear test”—Dr Khan came to Pakistan and established the country’s nuclear program in 1976.

In 2004, the Bush regime alleged that Pakistan was involved in nuclear proliferation. Then Pakistani military dictator, General Pervez Musharraf forced Khan to go on television and admit to being responsible for nuclear proliferation. Nuclear blue prints were found in Libya under Muammar Qaddafi.

In Pakistan, the nuclear file and all related works are under military control. Yet, Khan was forced to take the blame. He remained under house arrest for many years until the Islamabad High Court dismissed the charges against him and was released in 2009 when Musharraf had been removed from power.

Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan spent the last days of his life in isolation and deep depression. He bitterly said that being a patriot is a sin in Pakistan. He died a heart-broken man.

The latest victim of the thuggish generals is Imran Khan. His contributions to Pakistan are immense. Before entering politics, he had brought glory to Pakistan by winning the Cricket World Cup.

He also set up three world class cancer hospitals and a leading university in the country. All these he did by donating his own money as well as raising funds from people. Not one politician or general has done anything to help the people. They have no time from steal whatever they can lay their grubby hands on.

So, what did the thugs in uniform do to Imran Khan? On orders from the US, they threw him out of power. He has languished in jail on bogus charges since August 2023 as has his wife. And now his sister Aleema Khan has also been arrested.

The thuggish generals and their civilian puppets, do not believe in helping the masses. They want yes-men to do their bidding and keeping their mouths shut about the generals’ corruption and incompetence.

How can a country make progress in such horrific circumstances?

Pakistan

Türkiye’s Regional Shifts From Justice to Strategic Transaction Convergence

Mohamed Ousman

The zionist attack on the Mavi Marmara occurred in May 2010, when the Turkish-registered ship joined an international flotilla attempting to reach Gaza and challenge the blockade. Israeli commandos boarded the vessel in international waters; 10 Turkish citizens were killed. Ankara downgraded relations, expelled Israel’s ambassador, and demanded an apology, compensation for victims’ families, and changes concerning Gaza.

In 2013, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized to Erdoğan. In June 2016, Türkiye and Israel agreed to restore diplomatic relations: Israel would pay $20 million to victims’ families, while Türkiye would regain humanitarian access and pursue projects in Gaza.

Ambassadors returned, and military, economic, and diplomatic ties gradually revived yet Gaza was expended. The normalization illustrated a shift from punitive diplomacy toward transactional reconciliation, despite the unresolved grievance surrounding the deaths.

Relations ostensibly deteriorated after October 2023 as Israel’s Gaza genocide intensified; and notwithstanding Türkiye claims to have suspended bilateral trade in May 2024 until a permanent ceasefire and humanitarian access were secured, Türkiye-Israel trade flourishes.

The killing of Jamal Khashoggi

Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist, entered Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018 to obtain documents for his marriage. He never emerged from the building. Turkish investigators concluded that a Saudi hit team was sent for the purpose of killing him.

His body was dismembered and dissolved in acid inside the consulate. It has never been recovered. Saudi authorities initially denied knowledge of his fate but later acknowledged an unlawful killing.

A Saudi prosecution eventually convicted eight people, but command responsibility remains. A UN special rapporteur concluded that Khashoggi’s killing was an extrajudicial killing for which Saudi Arabia bore state responsibility.

Türkiye initially internationalized the case, publicized evidence and pursued a trial in absentia. Yet in April 2022 an Istanbul court transferred the proceedings to Saudi Arabia, effectively ending Türkiye’s judicial pursuit. Erdoğan then visited Saudi Arabia and relations were restored, demonstrating the tension between accountability, sovereignty and economic interests.

The Türkiye–Saudi Pact in light of Khashoggi’s murder

The Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, signed on August 7, 2026 by Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, marks a regional move beyond the reconciliation that followed Khashoggi’s murder. The pact states that an armed attack against one signatory will be regarded as an attack against all, creating a NATO Article 5-style collective defence.

It also institutionalizes political-military coordination, exercises and defence-industry cooperation. Its official rationale emphasizes historical ties, “Islamic” solidarity, shared strategic interests, collective deterrence and greater regional stability.

Turkish officials stress that it targets no particular country. In light of Khashoggi’s murder, the agreement is significant because Erdoğan’s regime had made accountability for the Saudi killing a major diplomatic issue, then transferred the Turkish case to Saudi Arabia in 2022 while seeking normalization.

The pact, therefore, illustrates how strategic interests can supersede unresolved accountability. It does not erase Khashoggi’s murder, but shows that states may dispense justice for bilateral interests and collective security.

Imam Muhammad Al-Asi’s Qur’anic Framework Analysis

Read through al-Asi’s Qur’anic framework, the movement from “justice for Jamal Khashoggi” and “justice for the Mavi Marmara Turkish citizens” toward the Makkah Pact exposes a conflict between principled accountability and nation state-centred strategic calculation. Al-Asi’s starting point is not that Muslims should reject diplomacy or alliances. Rather, political choices must remain subordinate to Allah’s authority, justice, taqwā and an independent Islamic purpose.

Taqwā is the central concept. Al-Asi calls it “the internal government in the conscience” that makes “Islamic law self-enforced; without it, government becomes a shell”. Treaties, Islamic symbolism, and institutions, therefore, do not establish Islamic justice by themselves. A pact signed in Makkah while rhetorically Islamic reflects conventional calculations of deterrence, regime security, economic resilience, and regional power.

Al-Asi’s claim that Islamic laws in Saudi Arabia are “meaningless because taqwā does not back them up” makes Khashoggi especially relevant: custodianship of the Haramayn and performance of rituals cannot, by themselves, prove Islamic justice.

His observation that “Individuals and societies conscious of Allah’s power and authority transcend fear or any cost-benefit-analysis” is central. Türkiye initially used the Istanbul location of Khashoggi’s killing to demand accountability and expose Saudi responsibility. Yet in April 2022 its court transferred the case to Saudi Arabia, ending the Turkish prosecution; Erdoğan then restored relations with Mohammed bin Salman.

This can be read as a shift from justice-centred diplomacy toward pragmatic statecraft, despite the continuing moral claim of Khashoggi’s family. The Mavi Marmara trajectory presents a similar tension: Türkiye secured compensation and other concessions, but normalized relations with Israel after 10 Turkish citizens were killed.

Al-Asi’s critique of nationalism sharpens the problem. He writes that Muslims can mistakenly characterize the straight path through “Arabian, Persian, Turkish, etc. nationalism” rather than Islam. Thus, “Turkish interests” cannot automatically become decisive merely because the Turkish state represents Muslims.

The question is whether Ankara’s policy advances justice and ummah interests or primarily protects its economic, security and diplomatic position. The Makkah Pact’s language of Islamic solidarity is significant, but its institutional form remains inter-state: Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan pledge collective defence, treating an attack on one as an attack on all.

This raises questions about contemporary control of the Haramayn. If authority is measured by the Prophetic leadership model, ritual administration of Makkah is insufficient; leaders must demonstrate principled submission to Allah rather than merely deploy Islamic legitimacy. Yet Al-Asi provides a qualification. He permits political arrangements with blocs not opposed to the Islamic order, provided Muslim leaders safeguard Islamic priorities and principles and are not inferior partners. The Makkah Pact could therefore fit his framework if it increases collective Muslim autonomy, security, and resistance to aggression without surrendering independent priorities.

His discussion of Jews and Christians adds nuance. Al-Asi distinguishes religious Jews and Christians from political actors who “plan coalitions, set up alliances and promote common policies,” to whom the Qur’anic prohibition is relevant. Yet theological difference does not abolish social relations: marriage with women of scripture and eating their lawful slaughter are permitted.

The Mavi Marmara reconciliation should be condemned because it involved Israel, who “plan coalitions, set up alliances and promote common policies” against the Ummah. This normalization subordinated Islamic principles and Palestinian justice to Turkish state interests.

Likewise, the Saudi pact should not be celebrated merely because it is signed in Makkah or framed as “Muslim” solidarity.

Al-Asi’s reading is, therefore, neither “never negotiate” nor “always prioritize national interest.” It is a hierarchy: Allah’s authority and justice first; political, economic, and security interests second.

Khashoggi and Mavi Marmara became symbols of justice, but Türkiye’s state diplomacy subsequently made both grievances expendable within broader nation-state relationships. The Makkah Pact changes the diplomatic geography by bringing Türkiye and Saudi Arabia into security cooperation.

Whether that represents Islamic convergence or merely strategic nation-state interest convergence depends on taqwā, independence from hegemonic pressures and fidelity to justice. Its Islamic vocabulary is insufficient; its value must be judged by its consequences for Muslim dignity, accountability and political autonomy.

Imam Zafar Bangash’s Seerah Framework Analysis

Through Bangash’s Seerah framework, the Turkish shift can be assessed by asking whether diplomacy reproduces Prophetic political method or merely reflects conventional nation-state interests. Bangash argues that the Qur’an, Sunnah and Seerah provide an integrated model for Muslim political action, while the Prophet’s experience in Madinah demonstrates how an Islamic power base was consolidated amid ideological, social, economic and security pressures.

The Covenant of Madinah is relevant because it organized diverse communities through agreed obligations, mutual security, political coordination, and recognition of distinct religious communities without reducing the polity to tribal solidarity.

The 2016 agreement with Israel obtained compensation for the families of the 10 Turkish dead and expanded Turkish humanitarian activity in Gaza, but it also restored diplomatic relations. Türkiye’s post-Mavi Marmara normalization with Israel can, therefore, not be understood as legitimate diplomacy.

Similarly, Türkiye’s abandonment of the Khashoggi prosecution in 2022, followed by reconciliation with Saudi Arabia, demonstrates a transition from accountability toward nation-state accommodation.

From Bangash’s perspective, the issue is not whether alliances are permissible. The Prophet himself used alliances and negotiated arrangements when they strengthened the Muslim community and protected its interests.

The problem arises when tactical accommodation loses connection with an Islamic mission. The 2026 Makkah Pact, by contrast, creates institutional collective defence among Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan and, therefore, resembles the Madinan principle of coordinated security. Yet its legitimacy depends on purpose: if collective power protects Muslims from aggression and expands autonomous capacity, it can be read positively; if it merely consolidates regimes and suppresses accountability, it departs from the Prophetic model. Thus, Seerah shifts the question from consistency of rhetoric to the political purpose, structure, and consequences of alliance-making.

Dr. Kalim Siddiqui’s Islamic Movement Theory

Siddiqui’s Islamic Movement Theory places the Turkish trajectory within a problem of the fragmentation of the Ummah into nation-states whose governments calculate interests separately rather than developing a unified Islamic political consciousness. Siddiqui argues for a global Islamic movement and a new consciousness capable of overcoming sectarian fragmentation.

His critique of Muslim nation-states similarly rejects the assumption that colonial political boundaries should determine the horizons of Muslim political action. The analytical question is whether Türkiye’s policies strengthen the collective power of Islam or optimize the position of the Turkish nation-state.

For Siddiqui, Islam is a global movement whose horizon exceeds territorial sovereignty and cannot be reduced to diplomacy. The Mavi Marmara episode generated a form of Muslim solidarity around Palestine and Turkish victims. Normalization with Israel in 2016 transformed that confrontation into prioritization of bilateral relations, while retaining humanitarian commitments and compensation.

The Khashoggi case followed a sharper reversal: Türkiye moved from internationalizing Saudi responsibility to transferring the prosecution to Saudi Arabia in 2022, facilitating reconciliation. In Siddiqui’s terms, both episodes reveal the limits of state-centred diplomacy when national interests become primary.

The Makkah Pact represents a different direction by joining Türkiye with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in a collective security mechanism. It could be interpreted as movement toward Muslim strategic coordination. Yet Siddiqui would likely distinguish coordination among states from the emergence of an Islamic movement. If the pact remains a regime-to-regime alliance driven by deterrence, investment, and geopolitical balancing, it does not overcome the nation-state system. If it develops autonomous Muslim capacity, transcends nationalism, and strengthens Ummah political consciousness, it moves closer to Siddiqui’s strategic vision. The key shift is therefore from justice rhetoric and national pragmatism to potential regional coordination between Muslims; whether the final stage becomes Islamic political convergence remains an open question.

Overall conclusion: across all three frameworks, the central analytical issue is the distinction between Islamic solidarity as a principle versus Islamic language as an instrument of state strategy. The 2026 pact may represent meaningful regional Muslim coordination, but its Islamic character cannot be established by its venue, participants, or rhetoric alone; its substance must be assessed through justice, taqwā, autonomy, accountability and the broader interests of the Ummah, particularly the implications of excluding Palestine from such a pact.

TurkeyRecep Tayip Erdogan

The Saudi-Pakistan-Türkiye military pact: Another paper tiger?

Omar Ahmed

Yemen has delivered the first serious test of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement (MJDA) scarcely six weeks after Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye signed it. The Ansarallah-aligned Yemeni army’s advance through the south-west culminated in the liberation of Mokha, placing forces aligned with Sana‘a astride territory overlooking the Bab al-Mandab.

Missile and drone attacks have meanwhile reached Saudi cities and energy installations, including the East-West Pipeline. Riyadh’s air force can punish exposed positions, but bombing alone has not reversed the battlefield balance.

The pact’s two other signatories have proclaimed solidarity without entering the war. Islamabad has used unusually forceful language about defending Saudi territory and the two holy sanctuaries, while Ankara has offered technical military assistance.

Neither has promised to send combat forces into Yemen. That gap between collective-defence rhetoric and carefully limited commitments raises the question that has followed the pact since its signing: is this a Muslim security architecture in the making, or another paper alliance of regimes whose interests diverge when the shooting starts?

Solidarity stops at Yemen

Pakistan’s reluctance to join another Saudi war on Yemen is neither surprising nor new. Parliament rejected participation in the Saudi-led assault in 2015, reflecting public opposition, fear of sectarian blowback and the danger of opening a further front along Pakistan’s western approaches.

Those constraints are even sharper in 2026. Islamabad faces intensifying attacks by the Balochistan Liberation Army and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), as well as unrest in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. A large expeditionary deployment would consume forces needed at home and could rupture Pakistan’s sensitive relationship with neighbouring Iran.

The bilateral Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement, signed by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in September 2025, was widely interpreted as a possible nuclear umbrella. Its timing, shortly after the zionist entity’s brazen attack on Doha, encouraged that reading.

Yet neither the bilateral accord nor the expanded Makkah pact has published operational provisions assigning Pakistani nuclear or conventional forces to Saudi defence. Strategic ambiguity may deter an external aggressor, but it does not answer who must fight whom, where, or by what means.

Islamabad has nevertheless stiffened its public position. After Saudi air defences allegedly intercepted a drone near Makkah on September 15, Pakistan’s military spokesman Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry told Arab News that his country stood with the kingdom “both diplomatically and physically” and would go “to any extent.”

He tied that pledge specifically to Saudi security and the protection of Makkah and Madinah. He did not confirm a new deployment or commit Pakistan to combat inside Yemen.

Pakistan already has thousands of troops, a JF-17 squadron, drones and air-defence systems in Saudi Arabia. Reinforcing border defences, supplying intelligence or helping intercept missiles would allow Islamabad to honour Riyadh’s request without repeating the disastrous Saudi-led ground war.

Direct attacks on the Ansarallah-aligned Yemeni armed forces would be different. They would weaken Pakistan’s role in mediation between the US and Iran, inflame domestic tensions and place Pakistani forces on the side of a war that devastated Yemen without defeating its resistance.

Turkiye has drawn a similar line. Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on September 19 that Ankara was ready to meet Saudi “technical” military needs, while stressing that Riyadh had not chosen the US-Iran war and should not be dragged into it.

The offer points towards air defence, equipment and intelligence rather than Turkish ground forces at Mokha. Ankara needs access through the Red Sea for its expanding East African presence, especially in Somalia, but it has no interest in turning the Bab al-Mandab into another open-ended battlefield.

The zionist entity’s recognition of Somaliland has only increased the value Turkiye places on Mogadishu and the integrity of Somalia. Berbera gives Somaliland a commanding position on the Gulf of Aden, while Turkiye’s political, military and economic investment rests with the federal government.

A prolonged closure of the Bab al-Mandab would damage that project. Even so, protecting trade routes is not the same as volunteering for war against Sana‘a.

An alliance without settled rules

The MJDA is no longer quite as institutionally empty as its critics suggest. The three states have established a joint secretariat in Riyadh, with Pakistan holding the first three-year chairmanship, and their foreign ministers held the first committee meeting in Istanbul on August 31.

These steps correct the impression that the pact remains only a summit photograph. But its rules of engagement, consultation procedures, force commitments and geographical limits remain unpublished or undeveloped.

A genuine counterpart to NATO would require far more than the declaration that an attack on one is an attack on all. It would need a permanent command structure, shared planning, agreed budgets, exercises and forces capable of operating together.

Even NATO’s Article 5 does not automatically require every member to enter a war with ground troops. The attacked state must seek assistance, and each ally determines what action it considers necessary. The Yemeni armed forces struck the Saudi Aramco refinery in Jizan shortly after the pact was signed, but Riyadh did not invoke the MJDA or define the assistance it wanted.

Saudi Arabia can display Pakistani and Turkish backing without admitting that its old US security guarantee has failed. Pakistan can reassure a crucial financial patron while avoiding Yemen. Turkiye can advertise strategic leadership and sell military technology without accepting another war.

Yet an alliance built on deliberate uncertainty risks exposure once one member demands something the others cannot provide.

Egypt’s refusal to join underlines that problem. Cairo participated in the R4 consultations, and control of the Bab al-Mandab gives it an obvious stake. But the memory of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s ruinous intervention in North Yemen still weighs heavily. Bound to the Camp David order and dependent on Washington, Cairo has little appetite to fight Yemen, Iran or the zionist entity for an untested pact.

The choke points decide

The alliance’s real test is not a clause drafted in Makkah but the geography of two maritime choke points. Gulf hydrocarbon exports remain exposed to the Strait of Hormuz, while the Red Sea route depends on the Bab al-Mandab.

Iran and the Yemeni armed forces do not need to sink every tanker. They need only raise the danger, insurance cost and uncertainty high enough to make normal shipping commercially untenable.

Attacks on the East-West Pipeline, therefore, carry significance beyond the damage inflicted. The line moves Saudi crude to the Red Sea, bypassing Hormuz. Once that outlet comes under fire, Riyadh’s alternative becomes another vulnerability. Oil-importing Pakistan, Turkiye and China then share the economic pain even if they reject military escalation.

The original draft of this alliance was written against the shadow of the zionist entity and the collapse of confidence in Washington. Yemen now threatens to redirect it into a Sunni bloc against the Resistance Axis.

That would reproduce the sectarian architecture the US and the zionist entity have long cultivated across the region. It would also erase Yemeni agency by reducing Sana‘a to an Iranian instrument, despite a decade of indigenous military development and the unresolved consequences of the Saudi-led invasion and blockade.

The danger for Riyadh is that its partners may defend Saudi airspace while refusing to rescue the Presidential Leadership Council or retake Mokha. Pakistan could add air-defence crews, aircraft and border forces. Turkiye could provide drones, munitions and technical expertise.

Such measures would harden Saudi defences but leave Sana‘a’s new position overlooking the Bab al-Mandab largely intact. A return to mass bombing would again kill Yemenis while offering no assured route to a stable political settlement.

Events since the disputed Makkah incident have sharpened the dilemma. On September 19, the Yemeni armed forces said they struck sensitive sites in Riyadh with missiles and drones, hours after smoke was seen near the capital’s main airport.

Turkiye condemned the attacks, but Fidan’s carefully framed offer still stopped short of combat. Pakistan also said that no discussion of a military response had taken place under the pact, even as its generals promised to act when required. The language has escalated faster than the alliance’s operational response.

Saudi air strikes and so-called kill boxes may slow Yemeni formations in exposed terrain, but they cannot remove the political and logistical foundations of Sana‘as war effort. Nor can they guarantee the security of a long coastline and the shipping lanes beyond it.

Every interception also consumes expensive missiles against much cheaper drones. For a kingdom already absorbing disruption to oil exports and infrastructure, this exchange imposes costs that Pakistan and Turkiye are unlikely to shoulder indefinitely. Their strongest incentive is, therefore, to prevent Riyadh from demanding the very intervention the pact appears to promise.

The MJDA may, therefore, survive its first crisis precisely because its members avoid testing the most expansive interpretation of it. Limited assistance can be presented as collective defence; direct war can be deferred in favour of diplomacy.

But that outcome would also reveal the pact’s limits. Saudi money, Turkish technology and Pakistani military power do not automatically produce a common strategy.

For the Muslim world, the decisive question is not whether three ruling elites can assemble another military bloc. It is whether the pact restrains zionist aggression and reduces dependence on Washington, or merely protects existing regimes while turning its weapons against Yemen and Iran.

Unless it confronts that contradiction, the Makkah pact will remain impressive on paper and dangerously hollow when its members face a war they do not equally regard as their own.

Kingdom of Saudi ArabiaPakistanTurkey