Vatican cardinal meets Saudi King in historic Riyadh visit

French cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran met with Saudi Arabia's King Salman on Wednesday in the first visit to the kingdom by a senior Catholic authority.

The meeting between the Saudi king and Tauran, who is the head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, is the first between the current Saudi ruler and a Catholic official.

King Abdullah, Salman's predecessor and brother, met Pope Benedict in the Vatican in 2007.

The visit is the latest in a series of meetings between senior Saudi officials and representatives of Christian traditions in recent months.

The head of Lebanon's Maronite Patriarch, Bechara al-Rai, visited Saudi Arabia in November.

Last month, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met with the head of the Anglican Church in London, where he promised to promote interfaith dialogue as part of his domestic reforms.

Prince Mohammed is attempting to promote a more "moderate" version of Islam and his kingdom under his ambitious Vision 2030 plan to transform Saudi society.

Salman has touted reforms - including an end to the ban on women driving - to promote a modernising image of the kingdom that experts say will make it easier to build trade and investment relationships with other countries. 

However, the ultra-conservative kingdom maintains a poor human rights record, with its repressive restrictions on women, a brutal ongoing crackdown on dissent and leading a devastating bombing campaign in Yemen which has become the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Religious freedom is severely limited in Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's holiest sites.