New Delhi: Pakistan’s celebrations over the tripartite deal signed between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey refuse to end. After making an exclusive song over the deal, the Pakistan government ordered all restaurants and cafés in Islamabad to light up their walls in red and green by 9 pm on Monday to celebrate the tripartite treaty.
To make matters worse, “non-compliance will apparently result in the establishment being sealed,” Pakistan analyst Javed Hassan wrote on X.
This is not the only celebration. Earlier, there were reports of fireworks going on in different parts of the country.
Hassan, in the X post, added, “Can residents of Istanbul, Ankara and Riyadh confirm whether their restaurants are beating us?”
Earlier on Saturday, Pakistani journalist Shahbaz Gill, in a Youtube video, pointed out that while one might have reasonably expected the first shipment from Pakistan to these countries to include fighter jets, submarines, artillery guns or Shaheen and Ghauri missiles, Pakistan had instead transferred several dozen dholaks, tablas, harmoniums, etc.
Later, even an anthem was composed.
Gill also claimed that the DG ISPR, the publicity wing of the Pakistani military, has its own technicians and singers who they take along to events, sit with them, and create songs in an instant.
The roughly seven-minute-long song celebrated the relationship among the three countries and spoke of how “in Mecca, hearts gathered, longing and loyalty met, and the bond of friendship” came together describing the countries as three brothers.
Also read: Pakistan Army’s media wing has a song on Mecca defence pact. Be afraid of god, journalist says
The pact
Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan signed a joint defence pact in Mecca on Friday, formally committing to treat “an armed attack against any one of the three countries as an attack against them all.”
The agreement, called the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, was signed following the Mecca Summit on Joint Defence, held at Al-Safa Palace in Mecca.
The agreement followed nearly a year of negotiations. Its signing in Mecca lent symbolic significance to the pact among three Sunni-dominated countries.
The joint statement said the agreement was guided by the “longstanding historical ties among the three countries, the enduring bonds of brotherhood and Islamic solidarity that unite them, and their shared strategic interests and longstanding defense cooperation.”
The agreement also provides for expanding defence cooperation in all areas between Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan.
Gill then used the episode to make a broader political point. He argued that Pakistan is facing increasingly serious economic and national-security concerns, while the military is devoting attention to what he regarded as frivolous musical productions.
Hassan went further to point out that the colours resembled the colours of Imran Khan’s PTI. He then asked, “Signs of rapprochement or are the orders going to be revoked once someone realises what they’ve inadvertently done?”
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)