Senior officials from the Mecca pact countries met Iran's president and foreign minister on 26 October in a joint de-escalation push; Tehran called the talks "very good", though no concrete outcome was announced.
Senior officials from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan held talks in Tehran on Monday 26 October in an effort to stop the Middle East war from reigniting. A Saudi foreign ministry statement said the delegations travelled to Iran to help "de-escalate between the parties to the current crisis". The group included Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, Pakistan's army chief General Asim Munir and Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin, and it met Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, according to France 24.
The meeting ended without concrete announcements, with the parties saying they agreed to continue discussions, according to Iranian state media. Mohsen Rezaei, who heads Iran's Supreme National Security Council, described the talks as "very good" and said he sensed a "new atmosphere" in the region. It was the first joint visit to Tehran by the three countries since they formed a defence alliance in Mecca in August. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said it was essential to stop any escalation, warning that a major attack on Iran combined with an Iranian attack on Gulf states must be avoided at all costs.
The diplomacy comes amid sharply raised tensions in the eight-month war. US President Donald Trump said on Friday that Washington may launch "another little Epic Fury", a reference to the US-Israeli campaign against Iran that began on 28 February, while Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Iran and its proxies could try to disrupt Israel's election on Tuesday. Riyadh has faced weeks of attacks from the Iran-backed Houthis, and Egypt's parliament approved defensive military support for Saudi Arabia if requested. Mediation between the United States and Iran has so far been led by Qatar and Pakistan, and a Qatari delegation visited Tehran on Sunday, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said.
