Iraqi President Fuad Masum is to visit Saudi Arabia Tuesday for the highest-level talks between the two neighbors in years.

Iraqi President Fuad Masum is to visit Saudi Arabia Tuesday for the highest-level talks between the two neighbors in years, as Baghdad is braced to counter the Takfiri threat represented by ISIL group which has seized several areas of Iraq since June.

The official Saudi Press Agency gave no details of the program for Masum's visit in a short announcement on Monday.

There have been years of tension between Saudi Arabia and its neighbor.

Relations plumbed new depths earlier this year when then Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki accused Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbor Qatar of backing terror groups in his country.

Riyadh hit back that it was the Iraqi premier's "sectarian" policies towards the “Sunni Arab minority” that were responsible for the ISIL capture of much of the Sunni Arab heartland north and west of Baghdad in June.

Relations began to improve after Masum's nomination of Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi in August to replace Maliki.

King Abdullah sent messages of congratulations to both men saying that he hoped the nomination would help "re-establish cohesion among Iraq's people and preserve the unity and stability of Iraq."

Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil producer, shares a border of more than 800 kilometers with Iraq.