Pakistan appoints retired general as 1st secretary general of Mecca pact

Pakistan on Wednesday appointed retired Lt. Gen. Nauman Mahmood as the first secretary-general of the Mecca defense pact, a trilateral agreement between Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan.

Mahmood will head the alliance’s General Secretariat in Riyadh, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

He headed the military’s National Defence University in Islamabad from November 2021 to April 2023. Mahmood was commissioned in the Pakistan Army on 1987 and retired in 2023.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement in August.

The agreement aims to promote security, peace, stability and prosperity while strengthening collective deterrence.

The agreement stipulates that an attack against any one of the signatory states will be considered an attack against all parties.