Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa arrived in Saudi Arabia on Monday, the Pakistan embassy in Riyadh said.

The head of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), General Faiz Hameed, is accompanying Bajwa.

The Saudi Chief of General Staff Major General Fayyad bin Hammad Al-Ruwaili received Bajwa, the Saudi ministry of defence said in a statement on its website.

“During their meeting, they discussed prospects of military cooperation and ways to boost it as well as other topics of common interest,” the statement said.

The two countries are traditionally close and Saudi Arabia in 2018 gave Pakistan a $3 billion loan and $3.2bn oil credit facility to help its balance of payments crisis.