Pakistan Caught Between Saudi Alliance and Iran Ties as Houthi Clashes Escalate

Pakistan is walking a diplomatic tightrope as escalating clashes between Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi movement and Saudi forces test its dual role as Riyadh's defence partner and a backchannel to Tehran.

The fighting marks the first significant trial of a mutual defence alliance signed last month by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, which supplements an earlier pact between Islamabad and Riyadh. Under the arrangement, an armed attack on any of the three nations is treated as an attack on all.

Pakistani officials are concerned that the Houthi threat is more likely to draw the country into a war than earlier Iranian missile strikes on Saudi energy infrastructure. Pakistani troops are stationed near the Saudi border with Yemen, heightening their direct exposure, according to officials.

This week, Islamabad conveyed a Saudi warning to Iran urging it to restrain its Yemeni Houthi allies, according to Saudi, Pakistani and Iranian sources. Pakistan's army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, also spoke by phone with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi on Thursday evening to discuss ways to revive diplomatic efforts to de-escalate on all fronts, a Pakistani source said.

"Pakistan is trying to keep a low profile in the Saudi-Houthi conflict because Pakistan's own stakes are high," a Pakistani government official said. "It does not want to spoil relations with Iran."

At a briefing on Thursday, foreign ministry spokesman Sajjad Haider Khan said no military response to the Houthi attacks was currently under discussion. He said Iran's leadership has consistently appreciated Pakistan's mediation efforts and that Islamabad has opposed escalation while advocating restraint, dialogue and diplomacy.

Iranian officials have publicly praised Pakistan's role and said they do not view the defence pact as a threat. Privately, however, three Iranian sources familiar with the discussions said that while Pakistan may have good intentions, it lacks the means to deliver or the negotiating experience of a mediator such as Qatar. Iran's foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

There are signs Islamabad is recalibrating. After Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed their initial defence pact last year, Kuwait sought a largely identical arrangement, according to four sources with knowledge of the talks. Pakistani officials, wary of deepening military ties with another Gulf state exposed to Iranian bombardment, scaled back the discussions. The two countries instead signed a narrower protocol in Islamabad last month covering training, border security and capacity-building.

Khan said on Thursday there were no plans to expand the broader Pakistan-Saudi-Turkey alliance to new members at present.

Farzana Shaikh, an associate fellow at Chatham House, questioned whether Tehran's trust in Islamabad was ever as solid as assumed. She said Pakistan lacks the wherewithal and experience that Qatar and Oman would bring, and that Islamabad's elevated role owed less to its own diplomatic capital than to the personal rapport between President Donald Trump and Field Marshal Munir. Trump has repeatedly called Munir his "favorite field marshal" following a Pakistani charm offensive centred on crypto deals, American access to rare minerals and counterterrorism.

Others argue this need not be fatal to Islamabad's mediator role. Kamran Bokhari, a Washington-based analyst on Pakistan-Iran relations, said Tehran engages Islamabad precisely because of its alignment with Riyadh and Washington, allowing it to deliver messages in ways a genuinely neutral party could not.

But an escalation in Houthi-Saudi fighting could upend that calculus. "Relaying and shaping messages is one thing," Bokhari said, but "active air-defense or intelligence support is another, tipping Pakistan from stakeholder into combatant."

Pakistan, which maintains the world's seventh-largest military by active personnel, has already deployed thousands of soldiers and a squadron of fighter jets to Saudi Arabia under the earlier defence arrangement. With troops also stationed along its tense border with India and fighting multiple insurgencies in its western provinces, Islamabad is trying to temper demand from other Gulf states seeking similar guarantees. "Pakistani forces are stretched," Bokhari said, making additional commitments "daunting."