Emirati Jibes At Pakistan Over Makkah Pact Lay Bare A Gulf Rift

ISLAMABAD: A run of barbed Emirati commentary about Pakistan’s place in the Makkah defence alliance has exposed a rivalry inside the Gulf that Islamabad did not create and has so far declined to join.

The sharpest came from Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a prominent Emirati academic and former aide to President Mohammed bin Zayed. In a post on X on August 15, he called it a paradox that a country where a quarter of the people are poor and a third cannot read, whose main qualification is 170 nuclear bombs, should put itself forward to defend one of the world’s 20 largest economies. The post has passed a million views.

It was not his first. On August 7, the day Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan signed the pact in Makkah, he questioned the credibility of the partners Riyadh had chosen and asked who the alliance’s enemy was meant to be.

The replies were swift, and many came from the Gulf itself. Abdulaziz Altwaijri, a Saudi former head of the Islamic world’s cultural body ISESCO, answered him directly: “It seems that the Mecca Agreement syndrome has left you dizzy.” Other users argued that a state’s alliances are not conditional on its wealth.

Some went back through his timeline. They resurfaced a 2015 post in which the same commentator urged Gulf diplomacy to use all its weight to secure Pakistan’s participation in the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen. The country whose troops he wanted then is the one he mocks now.

Claims circulating in Pakistan attribute similar criticism to Dr Anwar Gargash, the UAE president’s diplomatic adviser. The Lahore Times could find no such statement. What is on record is older and newer than the pact. In 2015, after Pakistan’s parliament voted to stay out of Yemen, Dr Gargash warned that the position would carry a heavy price. In July this year he reposted a joint Saudi-Emirati message of unity with a line of classical verse: “The spears refuse, when gathered, to be broken.”

Officially, then, Abu Dhabi speaks of brotherhood. The edge comes from voices around it, and from money. In April the UAE declined to roll over $3.5 billion in deposits it had renewed for years, and the State Bank repaid $3.45 billion on April 23. The Financial Times linked the decision to Islamabad’s closeness to Riyadh, its restrained response to Iranian strikes on the Emirates and its mediation between Washington and Tehran.

Pakistan absorbed the blow. Saudi Arabia placed $3 billion in fresh deposits and extended another $5 billion, reserves have since recovered and the IMF this week cleared its fourth review. The Foreign Office responded at the time by warning against attempts to drive a wedge between Pakistan and the UAE.

International observers place the jibes inside a larger contest. Middle East Eye, which first reported the backlash, describes two emerging camps: Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan on one side, and Israel, the UAE and India on the other. Theodore Singer, a former US intelligence officer, told the outlet that the UAE-Israel partnership looks the more immediately rewarding of the two, but that the Makkah pact could prove to have wider appeal and to rest on more than deal-making.

Dania Thafer of the Gulf International Forum told Al Jazeera that Riyadh is trying to turn the pact from a political declaration into a deterrent. From Dubai, Mohammed Baharoon of the Dubai Public Policy Research Center offered a calmer reading to Reuters, calling the Saudi-Emirati strains temporary and not structural.

The strains are real enough. The two neighbours have backed rival forces in Yemen, and the UAE left OPEC this year. Reuters reported in August that Saudi banks were applying extra scrutiny to UAE-bound transfers, delaying some payments, though the Saudi central bank denies any country-specific restriction. On July 21, ministers from both countries posted coordinated messages of unity without announcing that any dispute had been settled.

None of that is Pakistan’s quarrel. Islamabad has not answered the taunts in kind. Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar describes the pact as defensive, says more than six countries want to join and has left the door open, a position echoed by parties at home. The Foreign Office puts the number of Pakistanis living in the UAE at about 2.2 million and bilateral trade near $8 billion.

Events have also overtaken the argument. On October 5 the alliance was invoked for the first time, a retired Pakistani general was named its first secretary-general, and the army’s spokesman confirmed that Pakistani troops are in the kingdom. A country mocked in August for its poverty was, by October, running the secretariat of the Gulf’s newest defence arrangement.

The lesson Islamabad draws is the one opinion argued on Thursday: friendship from every Gulf capital is welcome, instructions from none. Its own red lines are set by its interests, not by a commentator’s timeline.