Evening recap

Good evening Middle East Eye readers,

If you're just joining us, here's an update on the day's key developments:

• Saudi Arabia opposed Egypt joining the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement signed with Turkey and Pakistan last week, despite Ankara's push for Cairo to be included in the pact, Middle East Eye exclusively reported.

• Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said that the US and Iran are close to "some sort of an arrangement".

• Yemen's coastguard has said that at least six people were killed in alleged strikes by the Houthi rebel group on a cargo vessel near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on Tuesday.

• The US, meanwhile, claimed an attack on a Panama-flagged cargo vessel that attempted to travel through the Gulf of Oman in violation of the unilateral US blockade of Iranian ports. 

• A Damascus court sentenced Syria's former president Bashar al-Assad, his brother Maher and former security official Atef Najib to death on Tuesday on charges of murder, torture and incitement to murder.

• Israel and Venezuela have announced the restoration of their diplomatic relations after years of severed ties.