Officials from Mecca pact states to hold talks in Iran amid regional tensions

Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan will send delegations to Tehran on Monday for talks with Iranian officials, according to Saudi and Iranian sources. The meeting will be the first high-level contact between Iran and the Mecca Defence Alliance since Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi armed group escalated attacks on Saudi Arabia last month. The visit is part of continued efforts by the alliance to promote dialogue and diplomatic solutions in support of mediation efforts by Qatar and Pakistan.

Iran’s deputy secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Bagheri Kani, said Saudi Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman Al Saud, Pakistani military chief Asim Munir and Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin will participate in a joint meeting during their visit to Tehran. The Iranian delegation will be led by Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. Bagheri Kani said the participating countries could take an effective step towards establishing regional security based on actors in the region.

The planned talks come as Saudi Arabia intercepted another wave of missiles and drones on Sunday, with fighting between Iran and the Houthis continuing. Field Marshal Munir last week visited Tehran, where he met President Masoud Pezeshkian and other senior officials. During the visit, Iranian officials told him there would be no talks with the United States about ending the US-Israel war on Iran until Tehran’s demands were met, according to Iranian media.

Pakistan has been a key intermediary between Washington and Tehran since the US and Israel launched the war in February. Earlier mediation efforts helped produce an interim agreement in June, but the deal quickly unravelled as fighting between Iran and the US resumed weeks later. Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement in August, under which an armed attack on one member is considered an attack on all. The agreement’s first article says the parties shall use “all necessary means” to eliminate threats to one another’s territorial integrity, sovereignty and internationally recognised borders.

The Houthi attacks have become an increasingly destabilising element in the US-Israeli war on Iran, turning US ally Saudi Arabia into a pressure point in the wider war. Ministers from the Mecca Defence Alliance countries held an emergency meeting in Riyadh this month and agreed to ensure the “rapid deployment” of military forces and capabilities in Saudi Arabia. Efforts by Turkiye’s parliament to ratify the agreement began last week and are still under way, while Pakistan approved the pact last week.