Mecca defence alliance members in Tehran to defuse Iran-US, Yemen tensions

Countering Houthi advances successful Yemen volition beryllium a large absorption for Saudi Arabia and its allies, though the determination representation remains analyzable and intertwined.

Tehran, Iran – Ministers and elder information officials from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye – the 3 nations that signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement – are successful Tehran to sermon determination information issues amid threats of caller US strikes connected Iran.

Saudi Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman Al Saud, Pakistani subject main Asim Munir and Turkish quality main Ibrahim Kalin met Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian and volition sermon tensions with information main Mohsen Rezaei.

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The meetings are among the highest-profile dialogues held successful Tehran successful caller months. While determination is inactive small accusation connected what mightiness beryllium discussed, the meetings travel amid a flurry of diplomatic enactment to woody with a new escalation betwixt the United States and Iran.

But analysts broadly judge the sojourn to Tehran by the 3 signatories of the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, a determination defence alliance, volition beryllium capable to forestall a caller outbreak successful unit betwixt the US and Iran.

“The Mecca pact’s 11th-hour sojourn to Tehran is an effort to extremity the equilibrium successful favour of those consenting to compromise earlier the guns commencement blazing again,” said Ali Vaez, lawman manager of the Middle East and North Africa Program astatine the International Crisis Group.

“But unless they get with a credible look to span the US-Iran divide, they whitethorn find themselves with small much than goodwill successful a contention against the clock.”

The talks are expected to code the waves of rocket and drone attacks carried retired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who are allied with Tehran, connected Saudi Arabia, which supports Yemen’s internationally recognised government.

“I judge that parties to the Mecca statement deficiency options of subject engagement with the Houthis, but Riyadh is surely asserting greater unit for more, and its anticipation of its partners has grown successful parallel with the violative from Yemen,” Ayesha Siddiqa, a elder probe chap successful the Department of War Studies astatine King’s College London, told Al Jazeera.

But contempt the corporate information statement successful the Mecca defence pact, Saudi Arabia’s allies Turkiye and Pakistan cannot “afford to perpetrate troops connected the ground” successful Yemen, said Siddiqa.

The latest diplomatic propulsion is apt linked to visits by Pakistani service main Asim Munir to Saudi Arabia and Iran past week, Siddiqa said, and coincides with Islamabad’s restrictions connected overland borderline trade with Tehran amid the US blockade connected Iran.

Iranian authorities person said they favoured “security originating from wrong the region” arsenic they prepared for the meetings.

Umer Karim, who researches Saudi overseas argumentation and its implications for determination security, said the Tehran meetings are improbable to trim the risk of a renewed warfare betwixt Iran and the US, which would apt pb to much determination turmoil.

“Therefore, these talks possibly are much acrophobic astir the information of Saudi Arabia and impact an effort by Turkiye and Pakistan to compel Iran to scope a compromise,” helium told Al Jazeera.

Traffic moves past portraits of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei successful Tehran connected October 21, 2026 [Atta Kenare / AFP]

US President Donald Trump is said to beryllium considering caller attacks to interruption the diplomatic deadlock with Iran, which has refused to hold to immoderate bid statement with Washington unless respective of its demands are met.

The US and determination powers privation planetary shipping and transit done the Strait of Hormuz to resume without impediments oregon attacks. Washington besides wants to rein successful Tehran’s atomic programme and bring successful planetary inspectors to measure Iran’s highly enriched uranium. Israel says it wants to overthrow the Islamic Republic.

Tehran wants to assistance the US naval blockade of Iran’s confederate ports, which has halted crude lipid exports and disrupted astir trade, and instrumentality to a memorandum of knowing agreed betwixt the 2 countries successful June.

The US has refused this, with President Trump saying helium is near with a prime to “finish the job” by launching large strikes connected Iran’s civilian infrastructure. This could punctual Iran to lash retired astatine its neighbours, arsenic it did earlier successful the warfare with strikes connected US bases successful Arab states and infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the US Department of State issued an October 21 bid for nonemergency US authorities employees and their household ⁠members to leave Saudi Arabia for their safety’s sake, fixed the Houthi threat.

As talks involving Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye proceed successful Iran, analysts accidental these Mecca Joint Defence Agreement signatories volition apt effort to minimise the interaction connected Saudi Arabia if warfare does interruption retired again.

“However, since small has changed from an Iranian strategical calculus and the actors progressive don’t person the benignant of leverage needed to impact Iran’s strategical thinking, these negotiations are going to output little,” Karim said.