Reporting snapshot · 19 October 2026 (Asia/Karachi). DPM/FM Dar held two phone calls on Sunday 18 October: first with Iranian FM Abbas Araghchi, focused on the just-concluded OIC Council of Foreign Ministers session in Baghdad, and then with Egyptian FM Badr Abdelatty, where Dar strongly condemned Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and the two ministers agreed to convene the next R-4 (Pakistan, Egypt, Turkiye and Saudi Arabia) meeting. The article is a synthesis of the FO's X-account read-outs, IRNA coverage and Pakistan Today's 19 October story.
What happened
Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar, made two separate telephone calls on Sunday 18 October in the immediate aftermath of the 52nd session of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) Council of Foreign Ministers, which closed in Baghdad the same day. The Foreign Office posted the read-out of both calls on its official X account, and Pakistan Today published a fuller account the following morning.
In the first call, Dar spoke with Iran’s Foreign Minister, Seyyed Abbas Araghchi. The two leaders “discussed the evolving regional situation and the ongoing OIC Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in Baghdad”, the FO said. Dar “underscored the importance of continued dialogue and diplomacy”, and the two foreign ministers “agreed to maintain close contact”. IRNA carried the FO statement in summary.
The second call, with Egypt’s Foreign Minister Dr Badr Abdelatty, was the more politically charged. The two leaders “strongly condemned the Houthi attacks against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, reaffirming their full solidarity with the Kingdom and support for its sovereignty, territorial integrity and security”. They also discussed the R-4 framework — the four-country grouping of Pakistan, Egypt, Turkiye and Saudi Arabia — and “looked forward to next meeting of the R-4 soon to further strengthen mutual ties and to coordinate on the regional issues”.
Why the Houthi condemnation is the new piece
The Dar-Abdelatty call is the first explicit Pakistani condemnation of the renewed Houthi missile and drone campaign against Saudi Arabia published by the FO since the latest escalation began in early October. Saudi authorities have reported a series of strikes in the past two weeks, including a 10 October strike on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, a second strike on the airport days later, and a Houthi projectile that hit a residential area in Najran on Saturday 18 October.
A week earlier, the FO’s weekly press briefing on 17 October declined to take a position on Saudi Arabia’s separate accusation that Iran was arming the Houthis, while reaffirming Pakistan’s defence obligations under the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement. The 18 October Dar-Abdelatty call sharpens that posture: Pakistan has now aligned itself, jointly with Egypt, behind an explicit condemnation of the Houthi attacks, in the same breath as it restated its commitment to dialogue with Tehran in the Dar-Araghchi call. For Cairo, the call consolidates the R-4 grouping at a moment when the Saudi-Houthi confrontation and the wider US-Iran war are pulling regional alignments in different directions.
What the R-4 framework does
The R-4 framework, launched earlier in 2026, brings together Pakistan, Egypt, Turkiye and Saudi Arabia to coordinate on regional crises — above all the US-Iran war and the Houthi campaign — and to keep their positions aligned across OIC and UN forums. The four foreign ministers last met in New York on 22 September on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, where they issued a joint condemnation of Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabia, called for the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding — the framework Pakistan has used to host US-Iran talks — to be upheld, and reiterated support for Palestinian self-determination. The R-4 has also met at officials’ level in Riyadh on 5 October. The agreement to convene the next R-4 ministerial meeting “soon”, as the 18 October FO post put it, is the natural follow-up to that New York meeting.
How this fits into the Makkah pact picture
Pakistan’s outreach to Cairo and Tehran on the same day has to be read against the backdrop of the Makkah pact, which obliges Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye to treat an armed attack on one signatory as an attack on all three. The pact has not been triggered by the latest Houthi strikes, and the FO has not named a threshold for activation. The Dar-Abdelatty call relocates the pressure to a softer, four-party track: condemnation rather than invocation, with the R-4 channel as the standing venue. The Dar-Araghchi call, in parallel, preserves the mediation channel with Tehran: DG ISPR Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said on 9 October that Pakistan remained committed to a “negotiated and peaceful outcome” of the US-Iran confrontation. Sunday’s call is consistent with that position.
What is still uncertain
Several pieces of the picture are still in motion. The OIC had not, at the time of writing, published a final communiqué from the Baghdad session, and the FO’s posts do not summarise any OIC-level text. The date and venue of the next R-4 ministerial meeting have not been announced. The Houthi attacks on Saudi civilian infrastructure are continuing.
It is also unclear how far the Dar-Abdelatty call will harden Pakistan’s posture in the wider OIC debate about Iran’s role in the conflict. The 17 October FO briefing held back from endorsing Saudi Arabia’s claim that Iran was arming the Houthis; the 18 October condemnation is of the Houthi attacks themselves, not of Iran’s alleged role in them. Whether that distinction holds when the R-4 next meets is a question the coming weeks of regional diplomacy will answer.
Sources & reporting notes
This is a synthesis of official statements and published reporting, not eyewitness coverage. The substance of the Dar-Araghchi and Dar-Abdelatty phone calls is drawn from the Foreign Office's X-account posts of 18 October 2026. The fuller account, including the agreement on the next R-4 meeting, is taken from Pakistan Today's 19 October report. The pre-meeting expectation that Pakistan and Iran would consult on the sidelines of the Baghdad OIC session, and the 17 October FO balancing-act briefing, are covered in earlier KhabarWire articles. No bilateral joint statement was issued; the read-out is unilateral on the Pakistani side.
- Primary record — Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pakistan (X post, 18 October 2026): "DPM/FM Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar held a telephone conversation today with the Foreign Minister of Iran, Seyyed Abbas Araghchi."Posted 18 October 2026 · The FO's own read-out of the Dar-Araghchi call, in which the two foreign ministers discussed the regional situation and the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in Baghdad and agreed to maintain close contact.
- Primary record — Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pakistan (X post, 18 October 2026): "DPM/FM Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar held a telephone conversation today with the Foreign Minister of Egypt, Dr. Badr Abdelatty."Posted 18 October 2026 · The FO's own read-out of the Dar-Abdelatty call, including the joint condemnation of the Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, the reaffirmation of solidarity with the Kingdom, and the agreement to convene the next R-4 ministerial meeting soon.
- Independent source — Pakistan Today: "Dar steps up regional diplomacy, holds talks with Iranian, Egyptian FMs on peace efforts"Published 19 October 2026 · The fuller account of both 18 October phone calls, including the reference to the R-4 framework and the FO's confirmation that further consultations with Iran would take place on the sidelines of the OIC session in Baghdad.
- Independent source — IRNA: "Iran, Pakistan foreign ministers meet on sidelines of OIC meeting"Published 18 October 2026 · Iranian state news agency coverage of the Dar-Araghchi contact, confirming the substance of the regional-situation discussion reported by the FO in its X post.
