Afrasianet - Elhami Meligi - Inspired by Helsinki in the Middle East does not mean literally transferring the European experience. The Middle East today is not the Europe of the 1970s.
Here is a settler Zionist occupation, exhausted states, civil wars, foreign bases, intertwined interventions, and maps that are still open to wounds.
It is no coincidence that the name "Helsinki" has returned to the Middle East lexicon at this time. The region, which has been pushed by the Zionist-American aggression against Iran to the brink of a massive explosion, can no longer pretend that the "American security" equation is still as valid as it has been marketed for decades.
The Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, can no longer ignore the naked truth: the American umbrella does not prevent fires as much as it manages them, nor extinguishes wars as much as it sets their pace according to the interests of Washington and Tel Aviv.
The idea circulated in press reports, especially the Financial Times, about the possibility of a regional non-aggression pact, inspired by the 1975 Helsinki Accords, seems more like a passing diplomatic exercise.
It is true that the talk is not yet about an official Saudi initiative that has been completed, nor about a project announced with specific mechanisms, guarantees, and parties, but it reveals that something is moving deep in Gulf security thinking: a growing realization that the region cannot remain hostage to an equation ignited by the Zionist entity, covered by Washington, and paid for by the Arabs, Iranians, and other peoples of the region.
The fact that Helsinki is being called here does not mean that the Middle East is about to achieve a comprehensive peace tomorrow, nor that deep conflicts will suddenly melt down on the negotiating table.
But it means that a new question is beginning to assert: Can the countries of the region produce their own security rules, instead of remaining an open arena for the wars of others? Is it time for the region to move from the logic of subordinate alliances to the logic of necessary understandings?
When imported security becomes a burden
For decades, Gulf security has been based on a grand premise: the United States is the supreme guarantor, foreign bases are the safety net, and American deterrence is the last wall to explode.
But successive experiences, from Iraq to Yemen, from the Gulf to the Red Sea, from escalation with Iran to open Zionist aggression on more than one arena, have proven that security when imported from abroad does not come without a price.
It comes with the priorities of those who give it, its wars, and its ability to turn other people's land into a theater of pressure and bargaining.
Washington negotiates when it wants, withdraws when it wants, escalates when it wants, and sells weapons when it wants, but the cost lies on the Gulf cities, energy facilities, sea lanes, the stability of countries, and on the global economy, which begins to shake from the Strait of Hormuz, Bab al-Mandeb or the Red Sea.
As for the Zionist entity, it wants the region to remain captive to its equation: there is no security for anyone except through its security, there is no stability except in what serves its superiority, and there is no calm unless it turns into accepting its conditions.
This is where the idea of a non-aggression pact takes on meaning. It is not a promise of paradise, but an acknowledgment that the existing hell is no longer manageable with the same tools.
It is not a declaration that the conflict is over, but an attempt to establish rules that prevent it from turning into a permanent war with no ceiling and no exits.
Helsinki Original: Managing Conflict, Not Abolishing It
When the Helsinki Final Document was signed in 1975, the United States and the Soviet Union were not declaring the end of the Cold War. The two camps did not reconcile, and the ideological competition between capitalism and communism did not stop.
What happened was something else: a mutual realization that continued escalation without rules, in a nuclear world, could lead to a catastrophe in which no one would win.
Helsinki therefore came to establish major political principles: respect for the sovereignty of states, non-use of force, non-change of borders by force, peaceful settlement of disputes, non-interference in internal affairs, economic cooperation, and respect for rights and freedoms.
The document was not a legally binding treaty in the traditional sense, but it did create a political and normative obligation whose effects later accumulated.
In this sense, to take inspiration from Helsinki in the Middle East does not mean to literally convey the European experience. The Middle East today is not the Europe of the 1970s.
Here is a settler Zionist occupation, exhausted states, civil wars, foreign bases, intertwined interventions, and maps that are still open to wounds.
But the value of Helsinki is not in its reproduction, but in its methodology: acknowledging the existence of adversaries, setting rules that prevent descending into the abyss, and building mechanisms that allow the contradiction to be managed rather than blown up.
Why Saudi Arabia Now?
If it is true that Riyadh is thinking or participating in the circulation of such an idea, this is inseparable from a deeper review of the Gulf security calculations after the Zionist-American aggression against Iran.
Saudi Arabia is not a marginal country in the Gulf equation; it is the largest Arab, Islamic, and economic heavier in the Arabian Peninsula, and any shift in its approach to regional security will have an impact on the entire balance.
Riyadh has already opened a track of de-escalation with Tehran under Chinese auspices in 2023, at a moment that revealed a Saudi desire to diversify options and not keep Gulf security locked in the US decision.
But the aftermath of the aggression against Iran raises a bigger question than restoring diplomatic relations or reducing bilateral tensions. It raises the question of the entire structure:
Will the region remain governed by the logic of American-Zionist polarization against Iran? Or will their countries begin to look for understandings that prevent disagreements from turning into permanent fuel for wars abroad?
Saudi Arabia, as do the rest of the Gulf states, knows that Iran is not a fleeting detail in geography. It is possible to disagree with it, to worry about its policies, and to negotiate the files of influence, missiles, drones, and its regional allies, but Iran cannot be removed from the map. Tehran, for its part, knows that its security is not based on a constant concern on the other side of the Gulf.
The two sides have a history of suspicion, but between them is a fact that wars do not cancel out: Geography is stronger than illusions, and neighborhood is not managed by denial.
The Zionist Entity: The Party That Lives on the Ignition of the Territory
Any serious consideration of a regional non-aggression pact will collide with the Zionist knot. The entity does not act as a natural state seeking mutual security, but as a colonial power that sees its security as dismantling the security of others. From Palestine to Lebanon, from Syria to Iran, its logic remained the same: striking outside the borders, imposing facts by force, preventing the formation of independent balances, and monopolizing the right of aggression under the guise of "self-defense."
Therefore, a "Middle Eastern Helsinki", even if it was not initially raised against the entity, carries within it the political possibility of isolating it. A true non-aggression pact means respect for sovereignty, an end to cross-border aggressions, a refusal to change the facts by force, and the opening of channels of conflict settlement.
These principles are directly in conflict with the behavior of an entity that continues its war of genocide in Palestine, insults Lebanon and Syria, strikes Iran, and then demands recognition as a natural party to a regional order entitled security.
It is more likely that the entity will resist any path of this kind, not because it threatens its security, but because it threatens its function. Its position in the old American regime was to keep the region frightened, torn, drained, and open to external interference.
Any Saudi-Iranian, Gulf-Iranian, or Arab-regional rapprochement reduces its ability to market itself as a guardian of the region in the face of the "Iranian threat," revealing that it was never a stabilizing factor, but one of the most important sources of explosion.
From a Non-Aggression Pact to a New Security Engineering
The idea, in essence, is bigger than Saudi Arabia and Iran. It opens the debate about the possibility of the birth of a new security architecture in the Middle East, which is not based on blind dependence on Washington, nor on the integration of the Zionist entity as a center of regional security, nor on the elimination of Iran, Turkey, or the Arabs from each other's equations.
It raises, albeit cautiously, a question that was postponed: Can the region think about its security in terms of the logic of its people, and not in terms of the logic of foreign bases and distant fleets?
This does not mean canceling the contradictions. Saudi Arabia and Iran have complex files in Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and the Gulf. And between Turkey and the Arabs, there are accumulations and fears.
Iran and a number of Arab powers have a heavy memory of suspicion. But politics does not begin after the contradictions have disappeared, but when it is less expensive to manage than to let them explode.
Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan can play an important role here, if these countries have a broader vision than partial calculations. Egypt, with its Arab, historical, and geographical weight, Turkey with its regional influence, and Pakistan with its military depth and relations with Riyadh and Tehran, is capable of giving any new security track weight beyond the Gulf-Iranian duality.
Limiting the idea to a narrow scope will make it more vulnerable to American blackmail, Zionist sabotage, Gulf hesitation, and the Arab division.
No illusions in the hard way
The idea should not be overloaded. So far, it is more like a political and diplomatic test balloon than a completed project.
The road ahead is full of obstacles: different positions within the Gulf, concern about Iran's intentions, American pressure, expected Zionist sabotage, and the complexities of open files in more than one arena. Also, any non-aggression pact is worthless if it is not transformed into clear mechanisms:
Channels of communication, early warning arrangements, understandings on the security of sea lanes, controls of missiles and drones, and mutual respect for sovereignty.
But the difficulty of the road does not negate the importance of the direction. The important thing is that the question has changed. No more: How to take more shelter in Washington? Rather: How do we reduce our need for them?
No more: How do we engage in the Zionist strategy against Iran? Rather: How can we prevent the confrontation with Iran from becoming a platform for the entire region? No more: How do we live in a perpetual war? Rather: How do we prevent war from becoming a regional destiny?
The value of a "Middle Eastern Helsinki" is not that it will be born complete tomorrow, nor that it alone can extinguish all the fires in the region.
Its value is that it reveals that the old security mind is beginning to crack: the umbrella provided as a guarantee has turned into a constraint, the protection marketed as security has turned into a lure into the wars of others, and the entity that Washington wanted to integrate into a regional security center that has been exposed as a center of chaos and aggression.
The idea may not work. Washington may abort it. The Zionist entity may destroy it. It may be weakened by the disparate Gulf calculations. It may be weighed down by the suspicions of Iran and its neighbors.
But just putting it forward means that the region is beginning to touch the limits of the old recipe. Whoever touches the limits of the prescription, the search for an alternative begins.
The alternative is not born all at once. It generates a question, then an idea, then a path. Today's "Middle Eastern Helsinki" may be just a question, but it is a question in the right direction:
How does the region move from being a theater of other people's wars to becoming an actor in its own security?
True security begins when the region stops waiting for those who lit its fires to put them out. When its countries realize that those who import their security import their dependence, and that those who tie their fate to the wars of others will only reap their ashes. As for the Middle East, if it wants to survive, it must write its own Helsinki: no copy of Europe, no echo of the Cold War, but a new regional era that declares that the time of turning the region into an open arena for Zionist aggression and American tutelage must end.
