On Monday 26 October Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), hosted Saudi Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman, Pakistan's Army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir and Ibrahim Kalin, head of Turkey's intelligence service, in Tehran1. President Masoud Pezeshkian also met the delegations. The joint statement says only that "the participants agreed to continue the dialogue to strengthen cooperation among the four regional countries, including for peace and security in the region".
Rezaei said afterwards that "West Asia's security must be based on the countries of the region", IRNA reported2, a line absent from the joint statement. Saudi Arabia described the visit as support for mediation by Qatar and Pakistan3. Tehran's version casts the pact states as partners in a Gulf order without Washington; Riyadh's casts them as couriers.
The three guests speak for the states of the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, the mutual-defence pact Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed on 7 August. They invoked it in Riyadh on 5 October after attacks on Saudi Arabia, which the statement did not attribute. Riyadh and Ankara sent security men, not diplomats; their foreign ministers had met Britain, France and Germany in Istanbul three days earlier. Egypt, the fourth state at the Istanbul table, did not come to Tehran.
Munir was back in Tehran six days after Pezeshkian told him sanctions must be lifted before any negotiations.
