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