Pompeo arrives in Riyadh, begins Mideast tour!

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo walks with Saudi's Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir upon his arrival in Riyadh.
(Reuters)

• Pompeo set off on his first diplomatic trip within two hours of being sworn in.

Mike Pompeo, the newly appointed US Secretary of State, has arrived in Riyadh for an official visit, the first leg of his Middle East tour, state media reported on Sunday.

Pompeo was received by Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel Al Jubeir at the King Khalid International Airport on Saturday evening, Xinhua news quoted the Saudi Press Agency as saying.Prince Khalid bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's Ambassador to the US, was also present at the airport.

"Secretary Pompeo met Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir in Riyadh today. Saudi Arabia plays an important leadership role in working toward a peaceful and prosperous future for the region. A strong US-Saudi partnership is critical to that effort," Heather Nauert, State Department spokesperson, tweeted on Saturday.

Pompeo's tour which also includes Jerusalem and Amman comes just two days after he was sworn-in as the 70th US Secretary of State.

The Senate voted 57-42 to confirm the former CIA Director as the nation's top diplomat.

Pompeo set off on his first diplomatic trip within two hours of being sworn in on Thursday and on Friday - after talks with the NATO allies in Brussels - he appeared to suggest that Trump plans to nix the deal.

"Absent a substantial fix, absent overcoming the shortcomings, the flaws of the deal, he is unlikely to stay in that deal past this May," Pompeo told reporters in at NATO headquarters.

Perhaps the last chance to fix these supposed shortcomings came from talks between Washington and its European allies Britain, France and Germany on a supplemental agreement to sanction Iran's missile program.

But both President Emmanuel Macron of France and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel left Washington this week after talks with Trump having failed to secure any promise that he might keep the core deal alive.

That may be music to the ears of the Saudi and Israeli leaders, who both support a tougher line on Iran.

"This administration has made it a priority to address Iran's missile programs," a senior US official told reporters in Riyadh, condemning the latest Houthi volley of missiles, themselves in part a response to Saudi air strikes.

"Iran supplies the missiles that the Houthis fire into Saudi Arabia, threatening civilians," he said. "Today alone the Saudis shot down four Houthi missiles, the latest in a string of such attacks."

According to US officials, while Riyadh has a right to self-defence, it must come to see that the solution to Yemen's civil war will be a political one and its forces must not exacerbate the massive humanitarian crisis there.

Washington also wants to see an end to the Gulf crisis that has seen Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates impose a diplomatic and trade embargo on fellow US regional ally Qatar.

And, perhaps most importantly for Trump, Pompeo will urge Saudi Arabia to provide personnel and funding to help US efforts to stabilise northeastern Syria in the wake of the expected defeat of the Daesh group.

"The president has made clear that he wants to see meaningful participation from states in the region," another senior US official travelling with Pompeo's party said.

"We want to see the kind of participation, for financial efforts, not just kinetic efforts that would match, parallel, would assist, the US role," he said. The United States has more than 2,000 troops in Syria.

Pompeo will conclude his first diplomatic trip on Monday after talks with senior Jordanian officials and then fly back to Washington to move in to his office in the State Department.