Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan Signed in Mecca, and Tehran Welcomed the Document

The mutual defence agreement was signed on camera on Friday. Iran International reports the text never once names a threat, and Iran’s foreign minister responded by calling it Muslim unity.

The signing took place in Mecca on Friday 7 August, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif present. Reuters distributed the signing photograph, credited to Murat Cetinmuhurdar of the Turkish Presidential Press Office. CNN’s live blog characterised the agreement as a “NATO-style pact” with a mutual defence provision; Türkiye Today carried a separate line that Erdogan called the pact open to other friendly nations. What has not been published anywhere The Files could reach is the communiqué itself. Iran International reports that the document “never once named a threat” — a claim this desk could not check against the Saudi Press Agency or Anadolu, and one that, if accurate, is the most important sentence written about the pact so far.

Tehran’s public response was not objection. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X, per Iran International: “When Muslims stand together, we can face every challenge by malicious outsiders head-on.” Other lines attributed to the same post in that report are truncated in our capture and are not reproduced here. CNN separately ran a video segment headlined “Iranian lawmakers criticize Saudi Arabia’s new defense pact with Turkey and Pakistan,” naming no legislator in the portion available. One further thread requires caution: the Azerbaijani aggregator Axar.az, citing unnamed Pakistani media, reported in advance that Araghchi would visit Pakistan on 7 August. That is single-sourced and aggregated, and this desk could not confirm the visit took place.

Assessment: A defence treaty signed in the third month of a US-Iran war that reportedly declines to name an enemy is not an alliance against Iran; it is an instrument for not choosing. Riyadh gets a Pakistani signature without an Iranian casus belli, Ankara gets a Gulf security role Washington did not grant it, and Islamabad keeps selling the same guarantee to both sides. Distrust “NATO-style” until someone publishes an Article 5 equivalent with a trigger and a command arrangement. Until then the pact’s function is visible in Araghchi’s welcome: a document Tehran can read as Islamic solidarity is a document that commits nobody to shoot.

Iran Is Asking Five to Seven Percent of Cargo Value; Oman Has Floated Three

For the first time the Hormuz draft has a price attached to it, reported by Fortune. Washington designated two crypto exchanges the same day it said the deal was “moving along.”

Bloomberg reported on 7 August that Iranian lawmakers spent Friday debating the wording of the proposed Iran-Oman arrangement, under the headline “Iran Debates Hormuz Wording as Trump Says Deal’s ‘Moving Along'”; the article’s own URL notes that a ban on US vessels is live in the draft. Fortune, published the same day, put numbers on it: Iran is demanding 5% to 7% of the value of cargoes transiting the strait, and Oman has floated approximately 3%. Iranian officials have said publicly that the regime would control outbound traffic and bar US and Israeli vessels — a prohibition that also appears, truncated, on TradingEconomics' commodity page. Fortune’s broader thesis, that the emerging arrangement recognises Iranian authority over Hormuz, is analysis, and the quotes carrying it are unattributed in the copy available here.

None of this is new as a demand. Three weeks ago, after Trump reinstated the naval blockade and announced a 20% fee on cargo through Hormuz, Araghchi told ABC News: “POTUS is absolutely right. Whoever provides secure and safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz should be compensated for this service.” The calendar explains the hurry. The US Treasury’s waiver of sanctions on the production, delivery and sale of Iranian-origin crude, petrochemicals and petroleum products runs through 21 August 2026. On 7 August, Treasury issued press release SB0598 designating two major digital asset exchanges it says Iran uses to launder billions and to support the IRGC — the same day the President said the talks were moving along. Qatar’s foreign ministry said on 4 August that drafts are circulating and that the two sides are not talking directly.

Traffic is returning faster than confidence. Lloyd’s List Intelligence, sampling 27 July to 2 August, recorded transits up sharply on the prior week and noted that non-Iranian gas carrier transits resumed after a two-week pause and containership transits after a one-week pause — the classes that leave first and return last — while adding that the week “ended on a violent note.” Windward’s 6 August daily intelligence logged two commonly-managed tankers and a Liberia-flagged tug crossing the southern corridor with AIS off for roughly twelve hours overnight, plus a 228-metre crude tanker going dark inbound. Prices disagree: Reuters put Brent at $83.29, up 0.97%, on transit-reopening expectations; TradingEconomics had Brent falling to $82.15 on a CFD basis, up 23.37% year on year.

Assessment: The negotiation has stopped being about whether the strait reopens and become about who is paid for it. A percentage of cargo value is not a fee, it is a sovereign claim priced by the buyer, and the gap between Iran’s 5–7% and Oman’s 3% is a bargaining band, not a compromise. Note what Washington did on the same day it praised progress: it took an unrelated financial lever and pulled it. Read the 21 August waiver expiry as the real clock — whoever wants a text signed before then is negotiating against a deadline the other side set. And distrust every “close”: the mediator says the parties are not speaking to each other.