“These are three important countries in the region. We are reviewing our options, but for now, we have not made any decision about joining it,” Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani told journalists in Islamabad on August 20. He was answering a question about the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, which Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed on August 7 in Mecca at the invitation of King Salman. The joint statement carried by SPA, the Saudi state news agency, treats an armed attack on any one signatory as an attack on all three. The pact is open to other states.
Al-Shaibani arrived in Islamabad on the night of August 19 at the head of a delegation, less than two days after Israel struck the Abu al-Duhur military airfield in Idlib province. No Syrian foreign minister had visited Pakistan in nineteen years. He met Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, and army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir.
Pakistani outlets carried the remarks first. Anadolu, Turkey’s state news agency, relayed them on August 21. Damascus put its position on a military alliance into the world from the capital of one signatory, through the wire service of another, not from Damascus and not through SANA, the Syrian state agency.
On Israel, al-Shaibani said it was far too early to discuss any strategic agreement and that Syria’s first priority was ending Israeli attacks. Israel, he added, does not get to dictate whom Damascus allies with.
He closed the other option in the same conversation. “We are not currently seeking to improve relations with Tehran. If Iran changes its policy, we would have no objection,” al-Shaibani said, adding that Iran must first acknowledge what it did to Syrians over fourteen years. He ruled out Pakistani mediation between Damascus and Tehran.
The visit produced no binding commitments. The two governments agreed to reactivate their joint ministerial committee, keep direct flights, set up a business council and hold an investment forum. Damascus will raise its representation in Islamabad to ambassadorial level. The decision on the pact was deferred, and al-Shaibani said it would come later.
On the night of August 18, Israel bombed a state bound to no one by a mutual defence treaty. Syria still stands there, and joining the Mecca pact would add nothing to its own forces. Something else changed. Damascus now holds a signature that would force any future strike on a Syrian airfield to be explained to Riyadh and Islamabad, not to Washington alone. Unsigned, it costs less. It no longer costs nothing. Al-Shaibani said just enough in Islamabad to make the price visible.
