ANKARA
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Interior Minister Prince Muhammad bin Nayef at the presidential palace in Ankara on Monday.
The meeting lasted an hour and 40 minutes and was closed to the press. It comes ahead of Erdogan's visit to Iran on Tuesday for high level meetings and follows the nuclear framework agreement between Iran and world powers last week.
Last Thursday evening, Iran and the P5+1 group -- the U.S., China, France, Russia, the U.K. plus Germany -- unveiled a preliminary framework for talks aimed at curbing Tehran's nuclear program and eliminating Western-imposed sanctions.
They have set themselves a June 30 deadline for reaching a final deal.
Erdogan and his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani are expected to discuss bilateral ties as well as regional and international issues in their meeting.
Saudi-led 'Operation Decisive Storm' in Yemen
The visit also comes at a time when Saudi Arabia is leading a military campaign against Houthi militants in Yemen.
Riyadh says its anti-Houthi campaign comes in response to Yemen President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi's appeals to "save the [Yemeni] people from the Houthi militias."
Meanwhile, the Houthis view the "Saudi-American onslaught" as a "blatant violation" of Yemen's territorial sovereignty.
Fractious Yemen has remained in turmoil since the Houthis overran Sanaa last September. Since then, they have sought to extend their influence to other parts of the country.
Some Gulf States accuse Shiite Iran of supporting Yemen's Houthi insurgency, while Turkey strives for a political solution.
"Our priority in Yemen is the resolution of the crisis by gathering all the parties around the negotiation table as soon as possible," Turkey's presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told a press conference Monday.
