VIDEO:Bush To Discuss Oil and Iran with Saudi King

The U.S. and Saudi Arabia will sign a memorandum of understanding in the area of peaceful civil nuclear energy cooperation.

U.S. President George W. Bush held talks with Saudi King Abdullah on Friday to seek help in taming record oil prices and shore up Arab support for his efforts to contain Iran's growing influence.

Bush, on his second visit to Saudi Arabia this year, was renewing his appeal for a boost in OPEC output amid rising pressure at home to do something about high fuel costs weighing on the economy. But he was expected to fare no better than he did in January, when he was rebuffed by the Saudi monarch.

"We do count on the OPEC countries to keep adequate [oil] supplies out there, so the president will talk again with the king about that," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters travelling with Bush.

As Bush flew into Riyadh, the White House said the United States, the world's largest energy consumer, had agreed to help protect the resources of the world's top oil exporter and help it in developing peaceful nuclear energy.

The announcement came as Bush ended a three-day trip to Israel where he vowed to oppose Iran's nuclear ambitions.

RESISTANCE TO OIL PLEAS

While Bush was likely to find common ground on Iran with Abdullah, the Saudi monarch has shown little sign of budging in his resistance to Bush's calls to get OPEC to pump more oil into world markets.

Since Bush's last visit, oil prices have jumped nearly $30 to around $126 a barrel, adding to U.S. recession fears and ratcheting up political pressure on the White House.

"Clearly the price of gas is too high for Americans," Perino said. "We have not enough supply and too high demand. Trying to get more supply out there is good for everyone."

Despite U.S. frustration with the Saudi position, it was all smiles and handshakes as Abdullah greeted the president and first lady Laura Bush on the airport tarmac.

They then rode together in a limousine to the king's sprawling horse farm outside Riyadh, the centrepiece of a visit the White House says is mostly to pay tribute to 75 years of formal ties between Washington and the Islamic kingdom.

"We're honoured to be here," Bush told Abdullah as they sat side by side inside an elaborate tent.

The two leaders will have a packed agenda as they try to improve ties that deteriorated in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The United States ended more than a decade of military operations in Saudi Arabia in 2003 amid resentment in the kingdom over the American military presence.

COOPERATION

As part of the new oil security arrangements announced on Friday, the White House said the two allies would conclude an agreement for broader cooperation between the Saudi Interior Ministry and the U.S. government, but gave no details.

Apart from agreements to cooperate on nuclear energy and oil security, the White House said Saudi Arabia agreed to join two global initiatives -- one to combat nuclear terrorism and another to fight the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

For his part, King Abdullah will be looking for reassurances on Bush's commitment to push a $1.4 billion U.S. arms sale through an opposition-led U.S. Congress.

Democrats have threatened to block the deal to pressure Saudi Arabia to increase oil output. OPEC members have blamed high oil prices on speculators and not any shortage of supply.

Bush travels on to Egypt at the weekend to meet Palestinian leaders, and before then he will press the Saudis to do more to support faltering U.S.-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. He wants to achieve a deal before he leaves office in January, but the deadline is widely regarded as unrealistic.

Bush also wants Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations to strengthen ties with Iraq, something they have been reluctant to do since the U.S.-led invasion that many of them opposed.