Expressions of solidarity by Saudi Arabia's Sunni leaders towards Shiites are helping to bridge a divide after an unprecedented militant attack against the minority community, analysts say.

Condemnation of the deadly shooting in the Eastern Province town of Al-Dalwa has sent a positive signal to Shiites who have long complained of marginalization in the Sunni-dominated kingdom, analysts say.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam is expected to travel to the United Arab Emirates on Monday to continue a tour he kicked off recently to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.

A ministerial source described in comments published in al-Liwaa newspaper on Tuesday the ties between Lebanon and UAE as “strong.”

Gulf monarchies have indefinitely postponed a ministerial meeting ahead of their annual summit, an official said Monday, amid a simmering dispute over Islamists between Qatar and three other members.

The Gulf Cooperation Council foreign ministers had been scheduled to meet in Doha on Monday, but the talks were postponed without any new date set, a Gulf official told AFP, requesting anonymity.

Iraqi President Fuad Masum is to visit Saudi Arabia Tuesday for the highest-level talks between the two neighbors in years, as relations thaw in the face of the jihadist threat.

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

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun said the extension of parliament’s mandate until June 2017 was aimed at preventing a change in the legislature's majority and revealed that dialogue with al-Mustaqbal movement on the presidential deadlock has stopped.

“The real reason behind the extension is to stop the current (parliamentary) majority from changing and consequently to control the presidential elections,” Aoun told As Safir newspaper in an interview published on Monday.

The chances of Army chief General Jean Qahwaji of becoming president have increased with his recent visit to Saudi Arabia, reported the Kuwaiti daily al-Seyassah on Sunday.

Arab diplomatic sources told the daily that his visit to the kingdom, where a number of French officials were present, to sign the Saudi grant to the Lebanese army “opened the last blocked doors to his election as president.”

Thousands of mourners joined Friday the funeral of eight people killed during an unprecedented rampage against minority Shiites in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province.

Seven of the dead were killed when masked gunmen opened fire on Monday night at a crowd in Al-Dalwa town, as Shiites commemorated Ashura, one of their holiest occasions.

Thousands of supporters of Yemen's ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh and Shiite rebels took to the streets Friday to protest threatened U.N. sanctions against the ousted strongman and insurgent chiefs.

Saleh, who stepped down in early 2012 after a year of Arab Spring-inspired protests, is seen as the main backer of Huthi rebels who have overrun the capital and several other areas since September.

Syria's Muslim Brotherhood, one of President Bashar Assad's political adversaries in exile, has appointed a 70-year-old British-educated ophthalmologist as its new leader.

The Brotherhood's council elected Mohammad Hekmat Walid for a four-year term in a vote Thursday in Istanbul, where the Syrian opposition in exile is based, a statement said.

Saudi Aramco operations are unaffected by a leak and fire which hit a diesel fuel pipeline near the capital Riyadh, a company statement received on Thursday said.

The state-owned firm is the world's largest oil company in terms of crude production and exports.