WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama will host Saudi Arabia's King Salman in their first and long-delayed White House summit on Friday, with clashing views on Middle Eastern crises coming to the fore.
Salman's inaugural visit as king -- originally scheduled for May and cancelled by Riyadh -- has been billed as a way of reinforcing US-Saudi relations.
In Syria, the White House wants to make sure both countries "have a common view" on which Syrian opposition groups get support, according to senior Obama foreign policy aide Ben Rhodes.
"We are looking to isolate more extremist elements of the opposition, that's been an ongoing conversation with Saudi Arabia," he said.
Both Washington and Riyadh would like to see an end to Syria's brutal civil war and see leader Bashar al-Assad pushed from power.
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