Top Obama adviser meets Saudi King

White House National Security Adviser James Jones has met with Saudi King Abdullah as the Arab country is involved in a military intervention in Yemen.

Jones, arriving in Saudi Arabia on the first leg of a regional tour, “discussed a number of issues of mutual interest” with the King on Tuesday, the official SPA news agency announced, without offering further details.

Jones also met Saudi Defense Minister Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz.

The meeting comes as Saudi Arabia and the US continue to lend military support to neighboring Yemen in support of its crackdown against the Shia Houthi fighters in north Yemen.

Jones’ Mideast tour of Saudi Arabia, Israel and Palestine, however, focuses mainly on the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, deadlocked over Israel’s settlements.

The Palestinians insist that peace talks with Tel Aviv cannot begin until Israel freezes all settlement construction in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem Al-Quds.

The Palestinians consider the Israeli-occupied land, home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque – the third most holy site of Islam – and the Dome of the Rock, as the capital of their homeland, fearing Israel’s continued settlement expansion on the land will ruin chances of establishing a viable Palestinian state.

Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jews, on the other hand, fiercely oppose admitting the Palestinian identity of the city, claiming a “God-given right” to Jerusalem Al-Quds as their “eternal capital.”

The Palestinians are also frustrated with US President Barack Obama’s shift in policy that now allows the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, labeled by many countries as illegal.

Recently, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged the Palestinians to resume peace talks without any preconditions.