In a rare gathering, senior security officials from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye have met Iran's political leadership in Tehran. It is the first high-level meeting between Iran and all three members of the Mecca Defense Pact since Yemen's Iran-aligned Ansarullah movement, better known as the Houthis, escalated its attacks on the Kingdom.
For the Islamic Republic, the meeting is a public relations victory, already presented as proof that the region can manage its own security. Saudi Arabia calls it an effort to de-escalate. In reality, it may be an attempt to limit the fallout from a possible Israeli-US offensive against Iran.
Iranian officials insist that neither Iran-US talks nor the nuclear program were on the agenda. Against this backdrop, it should perhaps be kept in mind that in the weeks before the war began in late February, Tehran turned down Turkiye's offer to host such an engagement in favor of Oman. Iran’s real motive, an informed Iranian political insider told Amwaj.media, was to avoid facing not only the United States at the negotiating table but also regional states that are dismissive of, if not hostile to, its policies. In other words, the Islamic Republic has little interest in involving its neighbors in that diplomatic engagement, except as intermediaries.
The guests nonetheless asked Mohsen Rezaee, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), about the status of talks with Washington. Rezaee is said to have told them Iran could shorten the implementation timeline of its seven-condition proposal to the Donald Trump administration, according to Ali Baqeri-Kani, deputy for foreign policy and international security at the SNSC secretariat. If “the only issue is the number of days,” Baqeri-Kani quoted Rezaee as saying, Iran could accept five or even four days instead of seven.
Yet the core obstacle is not speed or even substance, but sequencing.
Back to the future
The Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) agreed between Iran and the United States in June is a two-stage accord. Under its Paragraph 13, talks on a final deal, including on Iran's nuclear program, can begin only once five measures are being implemented, and they must continue while talks run.
The five are a ceasefire on all fronts including Lebanon, the lifting of the US naval blockade within 30 days, Iran reopening the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, the release of Iran's frozen assets and US Treasury waivers for Iranian oil exports. The harder issues, left to final-deal talks, are full sanctions termination, a 300B USD reconstruction plan and the nuclear file, including the down-blending of Iran's 60%-enriched uranium and the question of enrichment.
Iran's current seven conditions, never fully divulged, closely track that package. In September, Rezaee listed an end to the war on all fronts especially in Lebanon, to US attacks on Iranian territory, to the naval blockade, to US interference in Iran's internal affairs and to US cooperation with “opponents of the revolution”—plus the release of frozen funds. Other political figures in Tehran have added the lifting of oil sanctions.
Four of the MOU's five preconditions appear on Iran's list. The fifth, reopening Hormuz, is Iran's own obligation. Washington wants Tehran to move first on the maritime chokepoint, but Iran now treats the strait as leverage rather than a parallel step, a position undermined by the resumption of crude oil exports with the help of the US military.
To break the deadlock, senior political sources in Tehran told Amwaj.media, Iran last month proposed through Qatar a seven-day plan to end the war, under which Hormuz would reopen on Day 6 and final-deal talks would resume on Day 7. Squeezing that timeline to four or five days does not change the dispute over sequencing.
The Islamabad MOU, which Trump has grown to despise given the heavy criticism he faced in Washington—and especially from Israel's allies—envisaged the US naval blockade and Iran's Hormuz restrictions unwinding together over 30 days. Washington now reportedly wants the strait reopened first and Iran's conditions met gradually, plus nuclear concessions that Tehran wants left to final-deal talks.
In other words, the Trump administration wants core elements of the endgame up front. If that includes Iran's uranium stockpile, Tehran would be trading irreversible steps for easily reversible ones. In such a scenario, the Islamic Republic may calculate that peace today could ensure a much more costly war tomorrow.
A rare gathering in Tehran
Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman Al Saud, Pakistani Army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir and Turkish intelligence director Ibrahim Kalin met President Masoud Pezeshkian, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Rezaee on Oct. 26.
A brief statement issued after the meeting said Rezaee hosted the gathering and all parties agreed to keep talking about regional security. Some observers have read the absence of Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf as reflecting internal power dynamics, but Munir met Qalibaf during his visit to Tehran last week, when, according to foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei, the idea for the gathering was raised and reviewed “favorably.”
Protocol also gives a parliament speaker little reason to attend except as chief negotiator with the United States, which would have undercut the message that Iran-US diplomacy was off the agenda. Araghchi may also be leading talks with the Trump administration, but his presence was standard for a chief diplomat.
Iranian analyst Mostafa Najafi, who is usually well informed about political elite deliberations, has said the talks covered “reducing regional tensions and ending the war” with the United States, but not Iran's nuclear file. He said Riyadh could come to accept Iran's preferred arrangements in Hormuz under the Iran-Oman maritime agreement if it shows “good faith.” On Yemen, Najafi said Tehran is ready to mediate, but that the Houthis “will continue the war” until Saudi Arabia accepts their conditions.
Hardliners are less optimistic. MP Mahmoud Nabavian said the Kingdom’s “helplessness” against the Houthis had led it to “beg” for mediation. Conservative commentator Alireza Taqavinia argued that Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had already “made their decision,” while commentator Davoud Modarresian called the visit a ceremonial gesture with “no gains” for Iran. This all raises the question of why the Islamic Republic would welcome the session in the first place, beyond the theatrics and scoring political points ahead of a renewed war that will likely feature a strong blame game element.
The backdrop for the gathering
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud (MbS), Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement in early August. It treats an armed attack on one member as an attack on all three, echoing NATO's Article 5, but prescribes no specific military response.
Iranian government officials welcomed the pact at the time, saying it showed an understanding that reliance on regional states is key to security. Later in August, Iran's foreign ministry denied receiving a formal invitation to join, saying it had no reason to believe the pact targeted Iran. On Oct. 24, Iran's ambassador to Pakistan, Reza Amiri Moqaddam, said Tehran would study the agreement and “if it is good, we will support it.”
The pact's first test came in September, when the Houthis attacked civilian and energy facilities in Saudi Arabia. Ankara and Islamabad condemned the attacks but took no military action. Notably, a Turkish official told Middle East Eye that a possible India-Pakistan conflict and Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia were the agreement's “soft tummies.”
At an emergency meeting in Riyadh on Oct. 5, the three countries agreed on practical measures to strengthen deterrence and ensure the “rapid deployment” of military forces in the Kingdom. Since early this month, Saudi Arabia has also backed Operation Dawn of Yemen, a counteroffensive by Yemen's internationally-recognized government to retake Red Sea coast territory that the Houthis seized in September, after the collapse of a UN-brokered truce in place since 2022.
The clearest test may therefore come in Yemen. The Houthis launched new attacks on Saudi Arabia on the day of the talks. Any easing in the coming days would suggest that Tehran is able, and willing, to restrain its ally. That is far from certain, however. As former US special envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking has highlighted, the Houthis “don't really need the Iranians anymore.” Of further note, Riyadh has said the talks aim to prevent renewed escalation and pave the way for an agreement to end the crisis.
Israel, Trump and the risk of war
In Israel, which holds parliamentary elections on Oct. 27 amid renewed threats against Iran, senior figures accuse Netanyahu of using the prospect of renewed conflict to score points at the polls. The day before the polls, Yisrael Beiteinu party leader Avigdor Liberman asked the attorney general to open a treason investigation into the prime minister, accusing him of “attempting to drag the State of Israel into war on the eve of elections.”
Liberman acted after Channel 12 reported that the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, was resisting an order to carry out an unspecified military action that could trigger a confrontation with Iran, and had demanded signed legal authorization. Zamir and the military leadership were reportedly concerned that the political echelon was exploiting the Iran front for electoral gain.
Netanyahu's office has called the report “fake news,” and Defense Minister Israel Katz insists Israel had no intention of attacking Iran before the polls. Yet the IDF did not deny the report. Former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, one of Netanyahu's challengers, has publicly warned him not to “place your own political interests above the security of the state.” If the reports are accurate, Zamir has stopped Netanyahu in his tracks, at least for now.
Meanwhile, in Washington, Trump has said he is weighing a deal with Iran against military action to “finish them off.” It is an open question whether the president has any real interest in a mutually acceptable formula. After all, Trump may already have been persuaded that a deal will not deliver what one final blow against the Islamic Republic just might. If that is the case, Tehran may not be caught off guard this time.