Cheney on unannounced S Arabia visit

Cheney, who arrived from the United Arab Emirates, will discuss regional developments with the Saudi monarch during a brief visit of several hours to the oil-rich Sunni kingdom.

In late March, tensions boiled over when King Abdullah opened an annual Arab summit in Riyadh with a speech denouncing the "illegitimate foreign occupation" of Iraq and warning that "ugly sectarianism threatens civil war."

Cheney is also due to visit Egypt and Jordan to wrap up a week-long Middle East visit aimed at encouraging Washington's allies to help pull Iraq's minority Sunni Muslims into the country's fragile political process.