Iran has played down a mutual security agreement signed in Mecca by the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey, saying it has no reason to be concerned that the pact is directed against it. The deal, signed three days ago, is being sold as regional security coordination. On the ground, it reads like another arrangement among armed states deciding who gets to manage violence, and who gets to absorb it.
Security for Whom?
Esmaeil Baghaei, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, said on Monday that the agreement showed a “change in perception” toward the U.S. and a shift in the regional approach to security. He said it also reflected greater reliance on the states’ own capabilities rather than outside powers. That’s the language of sovereigns congratulating themselves for learning to run the same machine with fewer foreign hands on the controls.
Baghaei said, “Any plan that is based on the geopolitical and historical realities of the region, is comprehensive and inclusive, and correctly identifies the enemy and the threat, has a chance of helping to strengthen security and prevent instability and abuses by the Zionist enemy and its allies.” The line is doing a lot of work. It names enemies, claims inclusivity, and still leaves the basic structure untouched: states, blocs, threats, and the permanent management of populations through force.
Many analysts have suggested the alliance between Ankara, Riyadh and Islamabad is targeted at Tehran. The article says the three states have largely Sunni populations, while Saudi Arabia has had frosty relations with Iran and Turkey and Pakistan have remained relatively cordial with Tehran. In other words, the pact arrives wrapped in diplomacy, but it sits on old rivalries and the usual arithmetic of state power.
The Regional War Economy
Islamabad has been a key conduit for negotiations between the U.S. and Iran as they engage in a prolonged conflict over the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran has blockaded the strait in response to the U.S. and Israeli war on the country, which was initially aimed at toppling its government. That’s the real backdrop here: not abstract security, but a regional order built around war, blockade, and the survival of ruling structures.
Saudi Arabia has been the subject of Iranian retaliatory action primarily aimed at U.S. military assets within its borders. The state gets the message, and the people inside it get the blast radius. That’s how these systems work. They call it deterrence. Civilians call it living under someone else’s strategy.
As the conflict has dragged on, hostilities have reignited between Saudi Arabia and the Houthi-led administration in Sanaa, which controls most of northern Yemen. The Houthis have responded to Saudi air strikes and attacks by its allies in the internationally recognised Yemeni government with attacks on Riyadh’s energy facilities. The phrase “internationally recognised” does a lot of diplomatic laundering there. Recognition doesn’t stop air strikes, and it doesn’t stop the people under them from being treated as terrain.
Most recently, a Saudi Aramco refinery suffered widespread fires after a drone struck its facilities in the province of Jizan early on Sunday. The refinery fire is the kind of fact that cuts through the press release fog. States sign pacts in Mecca. Facilities burn in Jizan. Ordinary people live between those two events.
Old Grievances, New Blocs
Turkish and Saudi relations have improved in recent years through a rapprochement that followed soured ties over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and backing of rival factions in conflicts in Libya. The same governments that trade security language also trade alliances, cover, and selective outrage when it suits them. The murder of Khashoggi sits there in the record, not as an anomaly, but as part of the operating culture of the region’s rulers.
Pakistan, the report said, has long backed the government in Riyadh militarily while trying to maintain amiable relations with other Muslim-majority states, including Iran. That balancing act is presented as diplomacy. It also looks like what it is: a state trying to serve multiple masters, keep channels open, and preserve its own leverage in a region where security is something rulers negotiate over while everyone else lives with the consequences.
The Mecca agreement may be framed as a new regional approach. But the article’s own facts show the same old pattern: armed governments, shifting alignments, rival blocs, and civilians left to absorb the fallout when the machinery of state security starts moving again.