Senior officials from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye, the three countries that signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, are in Tehran for talks on regional security. The visit comes as Washington weighs new strikes on Iran.
Saudi Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman Al Saud, Pakistani military chief Asim Munir and Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin met Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. They are also due to discuss the tensions with Iran's security chief, Mohsen Rezaei. The meetings are among the highest-profile exchanges held in the Iranian capital in recent months, though little has been disclosed about the agenda.
Iranian authorities said ahead of the talks that they favoured "security originating from within the region." The visit takes place during a burst of diplomacy aimed at containing a fresh escalation between the United States and Iran.
Ali Vaez, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the International Crisis Group, described the trip as an eleventh-hour effort "to tip the balance in favour of those willing to compromise before the guns start blazing again." He added that without "a credible formula to bridge the US-Iran divide, they may find themselves with little more than goodwill in a race against the clock."
The discussions are also expected to cover missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia by Yemen's Houthi rebels, who are allied with Tehran. Riyadh backs Yemen's internationally recognised government. Ayesha Siddiqa, a senior research fellow in the Department of War Studies at King's College London, told Al Jazeera that the pact's members lack military options against the Houthis, while Saudi Arabia is pressing for more as the attacks from Yemen intensify. She said Turkiye and Pakistan cannot "afford to commit troops on the ground" in Yemen. She linked the push to Munir's visits to Saudi Arabia and Iran last week, and noted that it coincides with Pakistan's restrictions on overland border trade with Iran during the US blockade.
The underlying dispute remains unresolved. President Donald Trump is reported to be considering fresh attacks to break the deadlock, as Iran has declined any peace agreement with Washington unless several of its demands are met. The US and regional powers want shipping through the Strait of Hormuz to resume without interference. Washington also wants limits on Iran's nuclear programme and international inspectors to assess its highly enriched uranium, while Israel says it wants to overthrow the Islamic Republic.
Tehran wants the US naval blockade of its southern ports lifted. The blockade has halted crude oil exports and disrupted most trade. Iran also wants a return to a memorandum of understanding the two countries agreed in June. The US has refused, and Trump has said he faces a choice to "finish the job" through major strikes on Iran's civilian infrastructure. Such strikes could prompt Iran to hit its neighbours, as it did earlier in the war with attacks on US bases and infrastructure in Arab states.
Separately, the US Department of State on October 21 ordered nonemergency US government employees and their family members to leave Saudi Arabia, citing the Houthi threat.
Analysts are sceptical about what the talks can achieve. Umer Karim, who researches Saudi foreign policy, said the meetings are unlikely to lower the risk of renewed war between Iran and the US, and may be driven more by concern for Saudi security and an attempt by Turkiye and Pakistan to push Iran toward compromise. He said the pact's members will probably try to limit the impact on Saudi Arabia if fighting resumes. "Since little has changed from an Iranian strategic calculus and the actors involved don't have the kind of leverage needed to affect Iran's strategic thinking, these negotiations are going to yield little," Karim said.
