Iran hosts regional powers for talks to prevent fresh escalation
Senior security officials from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey met Iranian counterparts in Tehran on Monday
Senior officials from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey met Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Monday to step up efforts to prevent a new round of hostilities in the US-Israeli war with Iran.
The talks in Tehran are part of a flurry of diplomacy to push for an interim deal, amid fears that a new round of the war could erupt after next week’s midterm elections in the US. The meeting is the first between the members of the so-called Mecca mutual defence agreement as a group with Iran.
Oil prices, which have been trading at months-long highs because of the heightened tensions in the region, fell back slightly on Monday, with Brent crude, the international benchmark, down under $116 a barrel in early afternoon trading in London.
Ali Bagheri Kani, deputy secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Saudi defence minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, Pakistani military chief Field Marshal Asim Munir and Turkey’s intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin attended the talks. Pezeshkian was also present, local media reported.
The Saudi foreign ministry on Monday said the talks aimed to support Qatari and Pakistani mediation efforts and ‘‘de-escalate the current crisis’’.
“The kingdom emphasises the importance of opening channels for negotiation to prevent a resurgence of military escalation in the region, and to pave the way for an agreement that ends the crisis and secures peace and stability both regionally and globally,” it said in a statement.
A Qatari delegation was in Tehran on Sunday, “working in co-ordination with the US as part of ongoing efforts to de-escalate regional tensions”, another official said. Munir also visited the republic last week where he held talks with senior Iranian officials.
Qatar and Pakistan have been leading mediation efforts to broker a temporary deal between the US and Iran to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz and get the warring parties back to the negotiating table to resume talks on a final settlement to end the war.
The mediators have been trying to build on a seven-day plan Iran presented at the UN General Assembly last month, under which it would allow shipping through the strait if the US lifts its blockade on Iranian ports and grants Tehran access to some of its frozen assets held overseas. The parties would then restart negotiations on a final deal.
But there have been few signs of progress as Washington and Tehran haggle over the sequencing and the fate of Iran’s 440kg stockpile of highly enriched uranium. The US is insisting that the stockpile, which is enriched close to weapons-grade, be transferred offshore, but Iranian officials publicly reject any such move.
Amid the deadlock, there have been reports that US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are considering launching a new intense bombing campaign against Iran.
Tehran, meanwhile, has stepped up its attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and vowed a ferocious response if it faces a new bombing campaign, including threats to sabotage undersea cables in the strait and target data centres in the region affiliated with the US and Israel.
Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed the Mecca defence pact in August. They said it was defensive and not targeted at any particular state.
Analysts viewed the agreement as recognition among regional states that they would have to play a greater role in managing relations with Iran in the wake of the US-Israeli war against the Islamic republic.
In speech on Monday at Cambridge university, Oman’s foreign minister Badr Albusaidi said the Gulf states’ goal should be to reach a non-aggression pact with Iran, saying any regional “security architecture that doesn’t include them is inherently unstable”.
He added that the Gulf can “no longer rely upon the co-operation of external partners”, in a thinly veiled reference to its reliance on the US as its prime security guarantor, warning that the “long-term political cost has been too high”.
“This does not mean that external partnerships should be abandoned. It is just that their role in the regional security architecture can no longer be primary,” Albusaidi said.
The talks between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey and Iran come at a critical moment for Riyadh, which faces a deepening crisis as Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have targeted Saudi oil facilities and airports since reigniting a decade-long war in July.
The Houthi attacks caused Saudi Arabia to close Riyadh’s international airport for days and postpone Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s flagship investor conference.
Riyadh airport gradually began to reopen on Sunday, but the attacks threaten Prince Mohammed’s ambitious development plans and have added to the pressure on global energy prices.
Iran and the US had agreed to a memorandum of understanding in June to reopen the strait and hold talks on a final settlement, including a nuclear deal, but it collapsed after about two weeks, with both sides accusing the other of violating the interim agreement.
The US claims that it is in control of the strait and that oil flows have largely returned to prewar levels. But the vital waterway — through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passed before the war — remains the main battleground between the foes and energy prices have remained high.