The sealed watermelon of the Mecca Agreement

TEHRAN — Three leaders signed a promise inside Al-Safa Palace on Friday: an armed attack on Saudi Arabia, Turkey or Pakistan will be treated as an attack on all three. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan compared the clause to NATO’s Article 5. The full text stays sealed, unread outside the rooms where it was drafted. Persian has a phrase for exactly this situation: a watermelon still in its rind, “Hendevaneh-ye dar basteh.”