Tehran on Monday rejected as "ridiculous and baseless" accusations by Saudi Arabia that Iran is supporting rebels and blocking peace efforts in Yemen.

Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani gave a bitter speech on Sunday to announce his resignation, saying no one outside the Kurds’ home region had stood up to support their right of self-determination.

State-owned Saudi Arabian Airlines said it will start flying regularly to Iraq on Monday after a 27-year halt, state news agency SPA said.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered a 24-hour suspension to military operations against Kurdish forces in northern Iraq, to allow for the peaceful deployment of Iraqi troops at the border crossings with the Kurdistan region.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi held talks with key ally Iran on Thursday as his forces launched an offensive against the Islamic State group's last bastion in the country.

Iraqi forces are about to launch an offensive to recapture the last patch of Iraqi territory still in the hands of Islamic State, the military said on Wednesday.

Kurdish authorities in Iraq offered on Wednesday (October 25, 2017) to put an independence drive on hold, stepping up efforts to resolve a crisis in relations with Baghdad via dialogue rather than military means.

Iraqi forces are deploying tanks and artillery near a Kurdish-held area of northern Iraq where a section of a Kurdish oil export pipeline is located, as well as land crossings to Turkey and Syria, security sources said on Monday.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi defended the role of an Iranian-backed paramilitary force at a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Monday in Baghdad.

Saudi Arabia and Iraq convened a new joint body to coordinate their fight against Islamic State and on rebuilding Iraqi territory wrested from the group, the Saudi King Salman and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in Riyadh on Sunday.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived in Riyadh on Saturday to attend a landmark meeting between officials from Saudi Arabia and Iraq aimed at improving relations between the two countries and countering Iran’s growing regional influence.

A senior Iranian military commander repeatedly warned Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq to withdraw from the oil city of Kirkuk or face an onslaught by Iraqi forces and allied Iranian-backed fighters, Kurdish officials briefed on the meetings said.

The U.S. State Department on Friday urged the Baghdad government to avoid clashes in northern Iraq by limiting the movement of federal troops in disputed areas to those coordinated with the Kurdistan Regional Government.

A Baghdad court issued an arrest warrant for the vice president of Iraq's autonomous northern Kurdish region on Thursday for saying that Iraqi forces had "occupied" the disputed province of Kirkuk this week.

The semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq welcomed on Thursday a call by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi for talks to resolve a crisis triggered by a Kurdish referendum on independence last month.

The United States sought on Monday to avoid openly taking sides in an Iraqi-Kurdish dispute, as Iraq’s capture of the Kurdish-held city of Kirkuk raised the risk of an open conflict between U.S. allies in the fight against Islamic State.

An Iraqi Yazidi group affiliated with a Shi‘ite-led armed faction took control on Tuesday of Sinjar, said residents of the northwestern city that is claimed by both Kurdish and central Iraqi authorities.

After years of focusing divided Iraq on a shared fight against the Islamic State group, the United States is now straining to leverage its limited influence to avoid a full-blown conflict between the Iraqi and Kurdish forces it has armed and trained.

Turkey said on Monday it would close its air space to Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region and work to hand control of the main border crossing into the region to the central Iraqi government.

Iraqi government forces captured the major Kurdish-held oil city of Kirkuk on Monday, responding to a Kurdish referendum on independence with a bold lightning strike that transforms the balance of power in the country.