Why Pakistan-Saudi Arabia defence pact is unsettling India

A Pakistan-Saudi defence agreement pledging a mutual response to any aggression raises concerns in India.

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The embrace followed the signing of a "strategic mutual defence agreement", bringing the Islamic world's only nuclear-armed state closer to the Gulf's most ambitious monarchy.

A senior Saudi official told Reuters that the pact was merely an "institutionalisation of long-standing and deep cooperation". But many in India see it differently.

Despite Delhi's cultivated warmth with Riyadh, the pact lands amid heightened hostility with Pakistan, including a four-day conflict earlier this year. Nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan have fought multiple wars and clashes over Kashmir, making any move by Saudi to underwrite Pakistan's military a direct concern.

What unsettles Indian analysts the most is the pact's commitment that "any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both".