Iran hosts top security officials from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey as regional powers explore a security framework of their own amid growing doubts over Washington’s reliability and the fallout from the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.

TEHRAN -- Iran hosted senior security officials from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey on Monday for the first meeting of a new four-nation regional group, with President Masoud Pezeshkian declaring that Muslim states must stand as "one hand" against external threats and Israeli aggression.

Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman, Pakistani army chief General Asim Munir and Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin attended the talks chaired by Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council.

A joint statement said the participants agreed to continue consultations "to strengthen cooperation among the four regional countries, including in the field of peace and security in the region."

"Islamic countries should place the principle of brotherhood and unity at the forefront of their relations," Pezeshkian told the visiting officials, adding that Muslims "must stand as one hand against threats and actions that target Muslim nations”.

“If we make this fundamental principle the basis of our interactions, there will be no ground left for differences and problems among Islamic countries."

He added that Tehran supports "any understanding that leads to strengthening unity, cohesion, security and development in the region."

The meeting was proposed by General Munir during a visit to Tehran last week and welcomed by Iran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei told his weekly briefing.

Ali Bagheri Kani, international deputy of the Supreme National Security Council, said the three visiting states could join Iran in taking "an effective step toward creating endogenous security" based on Tehran's experience in national security-building — a reference to Iran's longstanding doctrine that regional security must be produced by regional actors rather than outside powers.

"The principle that regional countries are seeking to create, or at least reflect on, regional security mechanisms based on their own interests is a blessed matter," Baghaei said.

"This meeting can be a prelude to further steps toward shaping endogenous security, something we have insisted on for decades."

The talks mark a notable diplomatic victory for Tehran, which has repeatedly been excluded from regional and international gatherings convened to address the West Asia crisis.

In recent weeks, a meeting of the so-called R4 group — Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia — was held in Istanbul with the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Italy and Britain, the first joint session of its kind.

A separate gathering in Istanbul brought together regional and European ministers without Iranian participation.

Tehran has stressed that any security arrangement in the region that excludes it is doomed to fail, and in September proposed a meeting of all Persian Gulf littoral states in Salalah, Oman, which was cancelled at Saudi Arabia's request over the war on Yemen.

The composition of Monday's meeting carries its own significance. The three visiting states are parties to a trilateral defense pact — signed on August 7 and known as the Mecca Agreement — under which an armed attack on any one of them is treated as an attack on all three, a mechanism reminiscent of NATO's Article 5, alongside commitments on defense industry cooperation and joint production.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have completed ratification, while Turkey is still completing domestic procedures.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has described the pact as "purely defensive" and without direction against any country, and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan likewise said it was not aimed at Iran, but the emergence of a three-way defense bloc comprising two of Iran's neighbors and a Persian Gulf heavyweight cannot but affect the regional power equation and Tehran's threat perceptions.

Saudi Arabia's Al-Arabiya, a broadcaster close to the Saudi royal court, framed the Tehran visit as part of "continued efforts by member states of the Mecca joint defense agreement to reduce tension among the parties to the current crisis, encourage dialogue and diplomatic solutions, and support the mediation efforts of Qatar and Pakistan."

That framing suggests Riyadh views the channel as a crisis-management tool rather than a strategic realignment. Yet the deeper motive behind such mechanisms is a marked erosion of Persian Gulf confidence in the U.S. security umbrella.

The U.S.-Israeli war against Iran demonstrated that the presence of American bases in Persian Gulf states can expose those very states to retaliatory strikes, while Washington prioritizes the defense of its own forces and of Israel.

The Atlantic Council think tank wrote that the war has deepened longstanding Persian Gulf concerns about whether America is a reliable security partner, noting that unprecedented Iranian strikes on the sources of aggression in the Persian Gulf and the absence of U.S. consultation with regional allies before the war had pushed Persian Gulf leaders to fundamentally reassess their security strategies.

Analysts caution that the gathering is a beginning rather than a breakthrough. Mehran Kamrava, a professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, said Persian Gulf Arab states have concluded that any durable regional order must include Iran.

"Persian Gulf Arab countries opposed this proposal in the past because they feared Iran's influence would be legitimized. But gradually the understanding is forming that any durable regional order must encompass Iran, and that dialogue may be a more realistic path to stability than continued reliance on an uncertain external security architecture."

He added that efforts to marginalize and isolate Iran "not only economically but in military and security affairs, have met with little success," and that the confrontational posture of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council toward Iran in the 2010s "clearly backfired."

Nader Hashemi, director of Georgetown's Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, said Persian Gulf states want dialogue and accommodation with Iran but remain "heavily dependent on the United States in terms of military relations, intelligence cooperation and political ties," making a rapid move toward a new relationship with Iran difficult under U.S. pressure.

Pezeshkian used the meeting to press a broader agenda of Islamic solidarity, condemning Israeli "crimes" in Gaza, Lebanon and elsewhere and saying the aggression has extended to Iran itself, where "the leader, commanders, scientists and even schoolchildren of our country were martyred."

He said the enemy had imagined pressure and aggression could cause the Islamic Republic to collapse, but that the result was greater internal unity and cohesion.

“The idea that the Iranian nation can be forced into surrender is a false and void idea," he said, adding that Iran pursues its legitimate rights within international law and will firmly defend the nation's legitimate interests.

The president also renewed Iran's position on its nuclear program, saying Tehran is not seeking a nuclear weapon and, as an NPT member, wants to continue its nuclear activities within its international rights and obligations.

He criticized contradictory approaches — using the nuclear issue as a pretext for pressure, threats and attacks on nuclear facilities while simultaneously claiming readiness for talks.

"Islamic countries should not allow such approaches to become a norm in dealing with the nations of the region," he said.

Beyond security, Pezeshkian called for concrete economic and cultural integration, saying decisions taken at diplomatic meetings too often remain on paper.

"We should not say something we do not believe in or do not adhere to in practice," he said, urging the expansion of transport links, facilitation of travel, conversion of borders into opportunities for cooperation and connection of universities, scientific centers and traders across the Islamic world.

Deepening scientific, cultural and economic ties, he said, is itself one of the most effective ways to strengthen collective security by removing the ground for terrorism and insecurity.

The four-way statement was terse, committing the participants only to continuing the dialogue, and no follow-up meeting was announced. Iranian officials nonetheless presented the gathering as the first step in a longer process.

Bagheri Kani said all three visiting states, together with Iran, could draw on Tehran's experience to build "an effective step toward endogenous security within the framework of the Islamic Republic's workable and effective idea of regional security-building with the participation of regional actors."

Baghaei said the agenda included Palestine, Israeli expansionism and Lebanon, and that the meeting could not be held without addressing the consequences of U.S. aggression.

For Tehran, the meeting's value lies as much in what it signals as in what it produced: that after months of war and diplomatic isolation, regional powers are willing to sit with Iran to discuss security on terms that acknowledge its role.

Whether that translates into a durable framework — or remains a talking shop that manages the symptoms of crisis while leaving its causes untouched — will depend on whether the four states move from consultation to binding commitments.

What the gathering has already demonstrated is that the Persian Gulf's security architecture is being renegotiated, and that Iran is favored to be at the table rather than on the agenda.