{"id":228858,"date":"2026-10-27T02:18:29","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T02:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/mecca-defence-alliance-members-in-tehran-to-defuse-iran-us-yemen-tensions-al-jazeera\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T02:18:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T02:18:29","slug":"mecca-defence-alliance-members-in-tehran-to-defuse-iran-us-yemen-tensions-al-jazeera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/mecca-defence-alliance-members-in-tehran-to-defuse-iran-us-yemen-tensions-al-jazeera\/","title":{"rendered":"Mecca defence alliance members in Tehran to defuse Iran-US, Yemen tensions – Al Jazeera"},"content":{"rendered":"

Countering Houthi advances in Yemen will be a major focus for Saudi Arabia and its allies, though the regional picture remains complex and intertwined.<\/em>
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Tehran, Iran \u2013<\/strong> Ministers and senior security officials from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye \u2013 the three nations that signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement<\/a> \u2013 are in Tehran to discuss regional security issues amid threats of new US strikes on Iran.
Saudi Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman Al Saud, Pakistani military chief Asim Munir and Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin met Iran\u2019s President Masoud Pezeshkian and will discuss tensions with security chief Mohsen Rezaei.
The meetings are among the highest-profile dialogues held in Tehran in recent months. While there is still little information on what might be discussed, the meetings come amid a flurry of diplomatic activity to deal with a new escalation between the United States and Iran<\/a>.
\u201cThe Mecca pact\u2019s 11th-hour visit to Tehran is an attempt to tip the balance in favour of those willing to compromise before the guns start blazing again,\u201d said Ali Vaez, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the International Crisis Group.
\u201cBut unless they arrive with a credible formula to bridge the US-Iran divide, they may find themselves with little more than goodwill in a race against the clock.\u201d<\/p>\n

The talks are expected to address the waves of missile and drone attacks carried out by Yemen\u2019s Houthi rebels, who are allied with Tehran, on Saudi Arabia, which supports Yemen\u2019s internationally recognised government.
\u201cI believe that parties to the Mecca agreement lack options of military engagement with the Houthis, but Riyadh is certainly asserting greater pressure for more, and its expectation of its partners has grown in parallel with the offensive from Yemen,\u201d Ayesha Siddiqa, a senior research fellow in the Department of War Studies at King\u2019s College London, told Al Jazeera.
But despite the collective security arrangement in the Mecca defence pact, Saudi Arabia\u2019s allies Turkiye and Pakistan cannot \u201cafford to commit troops on the ground\u201d in Yemen, said Siddiqa.
The latest diplomatic push is likely linked to visits by Pakistani army chief Asim Munir to Saudi Arabia and Iran last week, Siddiqa said, and coincides with Islamabad\u2019s restrictions on overland border trade<\/a> with Tehran amid the US blockade on Iran.
Iranian authorities have said they favoured \u201csecurity originating from within the region\u201d as they prepared for the meetings.
Umer Karim, who researches Saudi foreign policy and its implications for regional security, said the Tehran meetings are unlikely to reduce the risk of a renewed war between Iran and the US,<\/a> which would likely lead to more regional turmoil.
\u201cTherefore, these talks perhaps are more concerned about the security of Saudi Arabia and involve an attempt by Turkiye and Pakistan to compel Iran to reach a compromise,\u201d he told Al Jazeera.
Sanam Vakil, the director of Chatham House\u2019s Middle East and North Africa programme, said she was \u201ccautiously optimistic\u201d about the impact of the immediate meeting, but \u201cless positive\u201d about a lasting breakthrough.
\u201cIran has strong incentives to avoid another major confrontation, and there may be room for limited understandings, particularly concerning Yemen,\u201d she said. \u201cHowever, the Houthis have their own calculations, and Iran\u2019s influence over them is not absolute. Preventing renewed US-Israeli attacks will be even more difficult because the fundamental disagreements between Tehran and Washington remain unresolved.\u201d
US President Donald Trump is said to be considering new attacks to break the diplomatic deadlock with Iran, which has refused to agree to any peace agreement with Washington unless several of its demands are met.
The US and regional powers want international shipping and transit through the Strait of Hormuz to resume without impediments or attacks. Washington also wants to rein in Tehran\u2019s nuclear programme and bring in international inspectors to assess Iran\u2019s highly enriched uranium<\/a>. Israel says it wants to overthrow the Islamic Republic.
Tehran wants to lift the US naval blockade of Iran\u2019s southern ports, which has halted crude oil exports and disrupted most trade, and return to a memorandum of understanding agreed between the two countries in June.
The US has refused this, with President Trump saying he is left with a choice to \u201cfinish the job\u201d by launching major strikes on Iran\u2019s civilian infrastructure. This could prompt Iran to lash out at its neighbours, as it did earlier in the war with strikes on US bases in Arab states and infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the US Department of State issued an October 21 order for nonemergency US government employees and their family \u2060members to leave Saudi Arabia<\/a> for their safety\u2019s sake, given the Houthi threat.
As talks involving Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye continue in Iran, analysts say these Mecca Joint Defence Agreement signatories will likely try to minimise the impact on Saudi Arabia if war does break out again.
\u201cHowever, since little has changed from an Iranian strategic calculus and the actors involved don\u2019t have the kind of leverage needed to affect Iran\u2019s strategic thinking, these negotiations are going to yield little,\u201d Karim said.<\/p>\n

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Countering Houthi advances in Yemen will be a major focus for Saudi Arabia and its allies, though the regional picture remains complex and intertwined.SaveShareTehran, Iran \u2013 Ministers and senior security officials from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye \u2013 the three nations that signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement \u2013 are in Tehran to discuss regional […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":228859,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}