George Bush to visit Saudi Arabia

US President George W Bush is to visit Saudi Arabia to encourage support for Middle-East peacemaking by the Arab powerbroker.

President Bush will spend two nights in the Islamic kingdom, having already visited Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. He will then go to Egypt before heading back to Washington on Wednesday.

His main message for Gulf Arab allies has been to support peace efforts and isolate Iran to keep in check its growing influence in the region, which is vital for world crude oil supplies.

Analysts say there are growing signs that America's Arab allies prefer to engage Iran, as Saudi Arabia did with its invitation to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the haj. He was the first Iranian president to receive an official invitation to the annual Muslim pilgrimage.

The Bush administration said it had heard a different account of that invitation, with a senior administration official saying: "We are told that Ahmadinejad, as he has done from time to time, invited himself.

"So if someone asks to come, the Saudis' view is it's very difficult for them as the custodian of the two holy mosques, which is the whole point of the haj, for them to say no."

President Bush has been giving warnings about Iran as a threat in the region throughout this trip to the Middle East. In a speech in Abu Dhabi on Sunday he declared Iran a threat to world security and "the world's leading state sponsor of terror."

He has also been asking Arab allies to diplomatically and financially support Palestinian leaders involved in peace talks, and to increase relations with Israel.

Saudi Arabia attended a US-sponsored summit in Annapolis, last year aimed at restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.

But Saudi Arabia has no diplomatic ties with Israel and says "normalisation" will only take place with a final peace deal that returns all Arab land occupied by Israel in the 1967 war.

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