RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has met with Saudi King Salman in the Red Sea city of Jiddah ahead of talks focusing on the conflicts in Yemen, Syria and Libya with other Gulf Arab officials.

At the start of Thursday's roughly half-hour meeting, the king and Kerry spoke briefly about the monarch's health and an operation he had in the U.S., apparently for back pain. It was not clear when the surgery was performed.

Kerry is also holding a meeting to exchange ideas about the war in Yemen and stalled peace talks with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, British Under Secretary at the Foreign Office Tobias Ellwood, U.N. special envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, and the United Arab Emirates' Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan.