King Salman agrees new areas of cooperation with Vladimir Putin on first official trip by Saudi monarch to Moscow

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman opened his historic four-day visit to Moscow by signalling a new era of cooperation with Russia, but demanding that Iran, an ally of the Kremlin, end its “interference” in Middle East politics.

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King Salman called for any peace settlement in Syria to ensure that the country remained integrated, but he did not repeat the longstanding, and now shelved, Saudi call for the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to stand aside.

The visit to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, on Thursday is the first by a ruling Saudi monarch to Moscow and is widely seen as a potential turning point in Middle East politics, and even the conduct of world oil markets.

More than 15 cooperation agreements worth billions of pounds were signed, ranging from oil, military and space exploration, leading the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, to claim the visit marked the moment when Saudi-Russian relations “reached a new qualitative level”. In one of the most remarkable deals, the Saudis said they would purchase the Russian S-400 defence system.

Many of the agreements covering Saudi investment in the Russia energy markets are hardly likely to strengthen the impact of EU and American sanctions over Russia’s interference in Ukraine. But Saudi Arabia is keen that the visit also secures a more permanent Russian cooperation over oil prices after a January agreement between the world’s two largest oil producers managed to stabilise oil prices.

Saudi Arabia wants to prolong the oil agreement, which curbed production and raised prices. Speaking in Moscow, the Saudi energy minister, Khalid Al-Falih, said the January agreement “had breathed life back into Opec” and made his country more optimistic about the future of oil. “The success of this collaboration is clear,” he said. Russia is not a member of Opec, but badly needs oil prices to rise to rescue its ailing economy.

The Saudis have traditionally seen the US as its chief – if not exclusive – foreign policy partner, but changes inside the Saudi regime, as well as Saudi fears about US reliability, have left the kingdom looking to diversify into wider set of alliances.

The visit has been in the works for months, if not years, but the Trump administration’s failure to give the Saudis unambivalent support in its dispute with Qatar earlier this year disappointed the Saudis.

Russia and Saudi were at loggerheads through most of the cold war and the Saudis have been stymied by the Russian decision to prop up Assad at a time when it was supporting the Syrian opposition with cash and arms.

Faced with Assad’s Russian-backed military advance in the south and west of Syria, the Saudis have been forced to scale back their political demands that Assad leave. They remain virulently opposed to an Iranian presence in Syria and will be seeking assurances from Putin that the Iranian militias fighting alongside the regime will be forced to leave Syria as part of any peace settlement. The Saudis also want the Iranians to stop backing the Houthi opposition in Yemen.

Play Video 0:36 Saudi King's golden escalator breaks down in Moscow - video

In his opening remarks at the Kremlin, King Salman stressed his opposition to Iran, saying: “We emphasise that the security and stability of the Gulf region and the Middle East is an urgent necessity for achieving stability and security in Yemen. This would demand that Iran give up interference with the internal affairs of the region, to give up actions destabilising the situation in this region.”

Russia has pulled out all the diplomatic stops to welcome the Saudi king, although there was glitch when the golden escalator due to take the ageing king down the steps at Moscow airport failed to function.