The Qatari pilgrims' crisis emerged once again in the current Hajj season, amid diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Qatar for more than a year, while the two countries exchanged accusations of intransigence towards allowing Qatari pilgrims to travel.

An official source at Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed Qatar’s surprise at the statements made by the GCC Secretary-General Abdullatif Al-Zayani on the current diplomatic crisis between Saudi Arabia and Canada.

The first salvo of sweeping US sanctions against Iran will be reimposed later Tuesday as the two countries traded fresh accusations and Tehran dismissed Donald Trump's offer of talks on a new nuclear deal.

The United States has asked the Saudi government for more details on the detention of activists and urged it to respect due process, a State Department official said on Monday, in the first comments by Washington since a dispute erupted between Riyadh and Ottawa over the arrest of rights campaigners.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo vowed Sunday that the United States would "enforce the sanctions" it is reimposing against Iran after President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear pact.

The EU said Monday it deeply regretted the U.S. reimposition of sanctions on Iran after President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear pact, and vowed immediate steps to protect European companies.

Iran said the United States was "isolated" in its hostility to the Islamic republic on Monday, as it braced for the return of sanctions against a backdrop of political turmoil inside the country.

Saudi Arabia said Monday it was expelling the Canadian ambassador and had recalled its envoy while freezing all new trade, in protest at Ottawa's vigorous calls for the release of jailed activists.

Canada is “seriously concerned” about Saudi Arabia’s freeze of new trade between the countries, but standing its ground on human rights comments which set off a diplomatic row, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said.

Saudi Arabia froze new trade and investment with Canada after Ottawa urged Riyadh to free arrested civil society activists, in the top oil exporter’s latest retort to Western criticism of its human rights record.

Saudi Arabia has agreed to admit an Iranian diplomat to head an office representing Iranian interests in the kingdom, the official Iranian news agency IRNA reported on Sunday, in a rare move after the rivals broke off relations in 2016.

Amnesty International and Citizen Lab issued two reports revealing the targeting of Amnesty by a spyware program developed by the Israeli NSO Group.

Rights group Amnesty International on Wednesday said it had been targeted by surveillance spyware in a suspected infiltration attempt by a government "hostile" to its work.

A number of Iranian pilgrims on arrival in Madinah praised the significant efforts of the Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the service of pilgrims, and services and facilities being provided for pilgrims without discrimination, Saudi Press Agency reported.

Israel would deploy its military if Iran were to try to block the Bab al-Mandeb strait that links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday.

Iran waved away US President Donald Trump's claims that talks with the country's leaders were imminent, saying "threats, sanctions and PR stunts won't work".

Saudi Arabia has arrested two more women’s rights activists, the latest to be swept up in a government crackdown on activists, clerics and journalists, an international rights group said on Wednesday.

US President Donald Trump suggested Tuesday that talks with arch foe Iran were imminent, but the idea has been criticized in Tehran, with the country's foreign minister warning that "PR stunts won't work."

Yemen’s Houthi group said on Tuesday it is unilaterally halting attacks in the Red Sea for two weeks to support peace efforts, days after Saudi Arabia suspended oil exp

Saudi Arabia announced last week it was suspending oil shipments through the Red Sea's Bab al-Mandeb strait after Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis attacked two ships in the waterway.