RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AFP) — US President Barack Obama flew in to Saudi Arabia yesterday, leading a heavyweight delegation to offer condolences on King Abdullah’s death and shore up ties that have suffered in recent years.

The United States established full diplomatic relations with the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom in 1940, and the unlikely allies remain bound by shared interests in regional stability and oil.

Air Force One touched down at King Khalid International Airport in the capital Riyadh, arriving from India where Obama cut short a state visit to travel to Saudi.

Saudi television showed new King Salman welcoming Obama and his wife Michelle at the bottom of a red-carpeted ramp before a military band played the US and Saudi national anthems.

In contrast to Saudi women, required to dress head-to-toe in black, Michelle Obama wore dark slacks and a blue top with her hair uncovered.

Salman’s heir Crown Prince Moqren and Mohammed bin Nayef, the powerful interior minister who is second in line to the throne, were among those who greeted the American delegation.

Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi was also among the delegation.

The US president then boarded a black limousine taking him to talks with Salman at a palace in the city centre.

The four-hour stopover was also to include a dinner before the US delegation continues on to Germany.

Salman, 79, acceded to the throne after Abdullah died on Friday aged about 90.

Authorities deployed armoured vehicles, police cars and radar all along the route into the city from the airport to secure Obama’s visit, an AFP reporter observed.

A row of stars and stripes flags flew beside Saudi Arabia’s green standards.

Despite the longstanding partnership, analysts say Riyadh has grown dissatisfied with what it sees as a lack of US engagement with regional crises as Washington looks to Asia.

Anwar Eshki, chairman of the Jeddah-based Centre for Strategic and Legal Studies, said “divergences persist”.

The differences include the battle against the Islamic State group extremists in Iraq and Syria, the nearly four-year-old rebellion against the Damascus regime and the post-Arab Spring chaos in Libya and Yemen.

Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Centre, said the US-Saudi relationship “is not what it was”.

Ties were better under both George Bush and his son George W Bush, who had a “relationship that was very much built on personal foundations,” said Shaikh.

The late king had a strained personal relationship with Obama, said Frederic Wehrey, of the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Middle East Programme.

Among the 29 members of Obama’s delegation are former Bush-era officials including James Baker, secretary of state during the first Gulf War against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, and Condoleezza Rice, who served as secretary of state under George W Bush.

Central Intelligence Agency director John Brennan and General Lloyd J Austin III, head of US Central Command, also accompanied Obama.

They had all been with him in India, but Secretary of State John Kerry and Senator John McCain joined the president especially for his Saudi trip.