Inside Story
Will players in the Gulf establish a new security framework?
Officials from Riyadh, Islamabad, Ankara and Tehran met in Iran.
With the United States and Israel signalling possible attacks, and Iran promising it will respond, a meeting in Tehran is being viewed as the last chance to defuse tensions in the Gulf.
Top officials from the Mecca pact nations – Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye – have sat down with Iranian leaders in Tehran.
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Diplomacy has so far failed to secure a peace agreement between Iran and the US.
But with fighting in Yemen spilling over into Saudi Arabia, can the Mecca alliance work with Iran to help secure the region?
Presenter: Folly Bah Thibault
Guests:
Hamid Reza Gholamzadeh – Director of DiploHouse, a Tehran-based think tank
Khaled Batarfi – Saudi political analyst and academic
Joey Hood – Former acting director of the Office of Iranian Affairs at the US State Department
27 Oct 2026