Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Riyadh on Tuesday, Saudi media said, his first visit in more than two years as Saudi Arabia moves closer to its rival-turned-ally.

Ties between Turkey and Saudi Arabia have steadily recovered in recent years, with the countries cooperating on a range of diplomatic issues.

This includes support for Gaza and backing Syria’s new government in the wake of the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in 2024.

Erdogan is set to meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during the visit — his first to the kingdom since July 2023, which was part of a Gulf trip aimed at drumming up investments.

There was no official indication of what the two sides would discuss.

But Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu reported that they would discuss the “deepening cooperation” between the countries, as well as regional and global developments.

It added that Erdogan would then travel to Cairo on Wednesday.

The visit comes days after two sources told AFP that Turkey would not be joining a mutual defense pact between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan had said earlier this month that they had entered talks aimed at joining the alliance.

But experts like Umar Karim of the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom warn that Turkey will have to balance any thaw with Riyadh against relations with other regional rivals.

“I think its in this visit that it will become clear what Turkey can commit to Saudis in terms of this rivalry with UAE and in terms of the security threat from Israel,” Karim told AFP.

“Based on what Turkey can and cannot deliver there will be this trilateral agreement,” he said

“Because Turkish elites have financial interests in Dubai and the UAE is playing an important role in stabilizing the Turkish economy, they cannot afford to go openly against it.”

Relations between Riyadh and Ankara were strained following the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018, a case that drew international attention and diplomatic friction between the two countries.

Erdogan’s visit comes ahead of a possible round of talks in Turkey between the United States and Iran later this week, an Arab official told AFP, following renewed calls from Tehran to restart nuclear negotiations and warnings from Washington over the consequences of a failure to reach an agreement.

Turkey has in recent years positioned itself as a diplomatic interlocutor on a range of regional issues, with Erdogan playing an active role in efforts aimed at easing tensions between regional and international actors.