JEDDAH — Members of Iran’s Quds Force and the Muslim Brotherhood mulled forming an anti-Saudi alliance in 2014, The Intercept, an investigative news organization, revealed on Monday, quoting leaked Iranian documents.

Representatives of the Quds Force, the overseas operation arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard, and the Brotherhood held a secret summit at a Turkish hotel in April 2014, in an attempt to seek common ground.

Although they had major differences, during the meeting they decided there “should be a focus on joint grounds for cooperation,” the documents revealed. Both sides shared “a hatred for Saudi Arabia, a common enemy of the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran”.

The Muslim Brotherhood was represented in the meeting by three of its most prominent leaders in exile: Ibrahim Munir Mustafa, Mahmoud El-Abiary, and Youssef Moustafa Nada, according to the document.

Representatives of the Brotherhood suggested the two entities should join forces against the Saudis. The place to do that was in Yemen.

The documents showed that neither side knew there was a spy at the meeting.

The MOIS, a rival of the Revolutionary Guard within Iran's national security apparatus, had an agent who reported on the developments that occurred in that meeting.

The MOIS agent not only attended but “acted as coordinator of this meeting”, according to the document.

Turkey at the time had good relations with both sides, which meant that it was safe to conduct the meeting there. But the government denied entry to the Quds Force chief General Qassem Suleimani, according to the document.

Other senior Quds officials attended the meeting that was led by one of Gen. Suleimani’s deputies, identified in the documents as Abu Hussain.

There were public meetings and contacts between Iranian and Egyptian officials while Muslim Brotherhood-backed Mohammed Morsi was president of Egypt from 2012 to 2013, said The Intercept.

The Iranian intelligence cable about the 2014 meeting provides an intriguing glimpse at a secret effort by the Muslim Brotherhood and Iranian officials to maintain contact — and determine whether they could still work together — after Morsi was removed from power. — Agencies