DHAKA: Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has arrived in Cairo, underlining the strong support of the monarch for Egypt’s newly elected president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Abdullah landed in Cairo on his way home from Morocco on Friday, becoming the first foreign leader to visit Sisi since he took Egypt’s presidential office less than two weeks ago.

The 90-year-old has offered some of the most vocal support for Sisi since last July, when the then-army chief ousted the Egyptian president Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Jazeera reports.

Fawaz Gerges, a Middle East expert at the London School of Economics, told media that Abdullah’s trip indicated that Riyadh had put Egypt at the heart of a regional policy aimed at curbing Saudi Arabia’s rival Iran.

‘Saudi Arabia is trying to basically build a wall of Sunni Arab states to deter Iranian influence in the Arab heartland,’ he said.

‘It feels that the Arab system of states is disintegrating; Iraq and Syria are in the grips of all-out war, the two non-Arab states Iran and Turkey are extending their influence,’ he added.

‘Egypt in the eyes of the Saudi leadership could play a major role in helping to create a deterrent Arab force.’

BDST: 1859 HRS, JUNE 21, 2014