Iran hosts Saudi Arabia and regional powers as fears grow of return to war

By Mostafa Salem, CNN

(CNN) — Saudi Arabia and its allies dispatched top security officials to Iran for talks on Monday amid fears of a fresh US-Israeli offensive that could plunge the Middle East into further instability.

Pakistani military chief Asim Munir and Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin joined Saudi Prince Khalid bin Salman in Tehran for meetings with Iran’s top officials, including national security chief Mohsen Rezaei and President Masoud Pezeshkian.

The meeting in Tehran comes at a tense moment in the Middle East as speculation grows that President Donald Trump could order new strikes on Iran after next week’s midterm elections. It also marks the first high-level contact between Iran and Saudi Arabia since Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis escalated attacks against Saudi targets last month.

The meeting will discuss “de-escalation” between parties involved in the “ongoing crisis,” a Saudi Foreign Ministry official, Rayed Krimly, said. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, told reporters the talks may serve as a prelude to “establishing a regional security framework.”

“We have consistently emphasized that regional security can only be ensured by relying on the will and security considerations of the countries of the region,” Baghaei added.

Saudi, Turkey and Pakistan represent the Mecca Alliance – a newly formed coalition of three of the region’s largest powers. The pact, under which an attack on one is deemed an attack against all, has drawn scrutiny for uniting nuclear-armed Pakistan, Turkey’s military strength and Saudi Arabia’s financial resources.

Pakistan has been a key intermediary between Washington and Tehran since the war started in February.

“The significance of the meeting lies primarily in its timing and the officials involved,” Hamidreza Azizi, a senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank, told CNN. “It comes at a moment when the risk of another round of war between Iran and the United States is growing, and the three members of the Mecca Pact have direct security interests at stake.”

The visit by Khalid bin Salman – a Saudi royal and brother of the kingdom’s de-facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – surprised observers. Iran and Saudi Arabia represent competing religious ideologies and have been locked in a regional rivalry for decades, culminating in an outright confrontation earlier this year after the US and Israel launched a war on the Islamic Republic.

Iran struck Washington’s regional allies, including Saudi Arabia, after the US and Israel killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei along with much of his military brass and top nuclear scientists in February. Iran’s allies and proxies, including those in Iraq and Yemen, have also struck Saudi oil facilities and civilian infrastructure, putting unprecedented pressure on the kingdom.

Countries in the Middle East are concerned that a fresh US offensive against Iran would invite further Iranian retaliation after eight months of instability in the Middle East.

Sufficient US forces are now deployed in the region to carry out the potential attacks, two US officials told CNN. The scope of new US military operations would likely go beyond efforts to simply “mow the lawn” or maintain the status quo by striking radars, launchers and other Iranian assets that can be quickly reconstituted — as has been the case since Trump halted full combat operations earlier this year, the sources added.

After months of retaliatory Iranian missile and drone projectiles on its US-allied neighbors, Tehran has decreased the intensity of strikes, instead focusing its strategy on creating economic uncertainty by trying to block the only waterway used by vessels transporting a fifth of the world’s oil and gas daily.

Tehran has called on countries in the region to remove US bases and end their reliance on Washington for defense. Most of Iran’s regional neighbors field militaries armed by the US, but have slowly begun diversifying their arsenals and formalizing new military alliances amid concerns over Washington’s commitment to defending its allies.

The Mecca Alliance is part of a “broader effort” to develop a more “independent regional security architecture,” Danny Citrinowicz, former head of the Iran branch of Israel’s military intelligence, wrote on X.

“The decision to engage directly with Tehran is equally significant,” Citrinowicz added. “It reflects not only recognition of the Iranian regime but also an understanding that Iran remains a central regional player whose influence cannot simply be ignored.”

Iranian officials have welcomed the initiative, and some, including former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, see it as an opportunity to move toward a broader security framework between the region and away from dependence on the US. Yet, these developments do not yet signal an immediate diplomatic breakthrough, Azizi of the Crisis Group said.

“Tehran wants credible guarantees that any agreement would prevent another military attack, and it is difficult to see how Saudi Arabia, Turkey or Pakistan could provide such guarantees or exert sufficient influence over Trump to secure them,” he said.

“Unless these countries bring something new to the table that could change the calculations in either Tehran or Washington, the meeting is unlikely to produce a substantive breakthrough,” Azizi added. “For now, it looks more like a last-minute attempt to prevent the resumption of war than the beginning of a new diplomatic process.”

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