Pakistan has been negotiating an expanded defense pact with Kuwait in exchange for energy cooperation and investment, according to five sources familiar with the talks.
The negotiations remain at an early stage and could still be complicated by heightened tensions between the United States and Iran, one source said. Reuters reported Thursday that concerns were mounting in Islamabad that Pakistan’s mutual defense agreement with Saudi Arabia, signed last year, could draw it into the US-Iran war.
After the Iran-aligned Houthi movement attacked Saudi Arabia on Monday, nuclear-armed Pakistan told Iran that it would regard any attack on the kingdom as an attack on itself.
A similar agreement with Kuwait, which has faced heavy Iranian attacks this year, would also raise questions about Pakistan’s ability to continue mediating between Washington and Tehran.
Kuwait has maintained a more limited defense agreement with Pakistan since 2023, focused on military training and joint exercises. It is now seeking a stronger commitment resembling Islamabad’s pact with Saudi Arabia, according to a Pakistani government official.
Kuwait’s requests include “thousands of Pakistani troops on the ground, fighter jets, drones, an air defense system and other defense-related facilities,” the official said.
It remains unclear whether Pakistan would be willing to make such an extensive commitment. Its agreement with Saudi Arabia emerged from Islamabad’s decades-old strategic relationship with Riyadh, a level of cooperation that does not exist with Kuwait.
“Kuwait’s wish list includes everything,” said a Pakistani security official familiar with the talks. “But let me be clear about one thing: We are not and we cannot consider a deployment of combat troops at this stage.”
A Middle Eastern source confirmed that Kuwait had been holding discussions with Pakistan, including over defense procurement, but said it was “not clear this will amount to a defense pact per se.”
Reuters spoke with four Pakistani sources and one Middle Eastern source, none of whom was authorized to speak publicly. Pakistan’s military media wing and Kuwait’s Information Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
Search for alternatives to US protection
Pakistan and several Gulf states have increasingly viewed regional defense agreements as a way to reduce their reliance on traditional security arrangements.
Pakistan maintains one of the region’s largest militaries and manufactures its own fighter aircraft, making it a potential alternative or supplement to US protection as Gulf governments grow more uncertain about Washington’s reliability.
Pakistan is viewed in Kuwait as a relatively safe option, according to a Middle Eastern source familiar with Kuwait’s security planning.
Emir of Kuwait Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah
(Photo: Yasser Al-Zayyat / AFP)
“They are already in with the Saudis, they have a long history of defense development, they are Muslim Sunni, they have a good relationship with the Americans, so it’s not as sensitive as some other options,” the source said.
Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have also been preparing a draft mutual defense agreement separate from Islamabad’s existing pact with Riyadh. Bahrain is interested in a similar arrangement, one source said, while Jordan has expressed interest in a weapons and training agreement, according to three sources.
‘Barrels for boots’
Pakistan sees defense agreements with neighboring states as a possible means of securing badly needed investment and energy supplies.
Under a potential agreement with Kuwait, Islamabad would seek cooperation on energy security as part of a broader effort by Pakistan’s Energy Ministry to increase national oil and fuel reserves.
Kuwait is exploring the establishment of bonded fuel storage facilities in Pakistan, building on an existing government-to-government diesel supply agreement, a Pakistani source familiar with the talks said.
Such incentives could prove attractive enough for Pakistan’s leadership to pursue a broader defense arrangement, two sources said. They added that negotiations were expected to accelerate once tensions between the United States and Iran eased.
Analysts, however, cautioned that this expectation may be overly optimistic.
“Pakistan has to be cognizant of dangers of over-commitment,” said Muhammad Faisal, a South Asia researcher at the University of Technology Sydney.