Senior officials from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey met Iranian leaders in Tehran on Monday to discuss regional security, the first high-level contact between Iran and all three Mecca Pact members since the pact was signed in August.
Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, Pakistan army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir and Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin met Iranian leaders in Tehran on Monday for talks on regional security. On the Iranian side, President Masoud Pezeshkian, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and Supreme National Security Council secretary Mohsen Rezaei took part, according to Reuters and Iranian state media.
The meeting was the first high-level contact between Iran and all three members of the Mecca mutual defence pact since Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey signed the agreement in August, under which an armed attack on one member is treated as an attack on all. It also came as fighting involving Iran, Israel, the United States and Yemen's Houthis continued, with the Houthis launching new attacks on Saudi targets.
Saudi Arabia said the visit was intended to open negotiating channels and prevent a return of military escalation. At the end of the meetings, the four states agreed to continue talks aimed at strengthening cooperation, especially on peace and security, Iranian state media reported. An Iranian official told Reuters that the nuclear programme was not discussed, and that Tehran wants its demands addressed first, including the lifting of the US naval blockade on Iran and oil export sanctions.
No ceasefire or wider settlement was reported from the meeting. What the reports establish is the channel itself: a first joint session, a stated purpose of preventing escalation, and an agreement to keep talking. The reports do not establish that any substantive deal was reached, and the mediation efforts led by Pakistan and Qatar continue alongside it.
The backdrop explains the urgency. An interim peace agreement reached in June unravelled as fighting between Iran and the United States resumed, and the conflict then widened to the Houthi front against Saudi Arabia. Qatari mediators were in Tehran on Sunday, and Munir was making his second trip to Tehran within a week.
The next test is whether the channel produces anything beyond continued talks. The pact's own Strategic-Political and Defence Committee met in emergency session in Riyadh earlier in October and agreed on collective deterrence measures, so the Tehran meeting sits alongside military preparation, not instead of it.