Morocco's health minister has advised the country's Muslim faithful against making pilgrimages to Saudi Arabia this year, with the deadly MERS virus having killed nearly 300 people there so far.

Last week, the health ministry urged the sick and the frail to postpone any planned pilgrimages until 2015, and circulated among those determined to go information on the health risks from the virus.

Saudi Arabia warned Wednesday of the risks of a civil war in Iraq with unpredictable consequences for the region, after Sunni militants seized large areas from Shiite-led government forces.

The unrest "carries warning signs of a civil war with unpredictable consequences for the region," Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said at the opening of an Islamic bloc meeting in the Red Sea city of Jeddah.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam is scheduled to visit Kuwait on Sunday for talks with Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah, in his second Gulf state visit in a month.

Al-Liwaa daily said Wednesday that the one-day trip is aimed at sending a message that Lebanon's security situation has improved and that Kuwaiti citizens could visit the country.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said Tuesday that developments in Iraq, where jihadist-led militants have seized swathes of the country, emphasize the need to combat terror financing.

Lew told a press conference in Jeddah after talks with Saudi counterpart Ibrahim al-Assaf that close cooperation between the two countries "is even more important given our shared concerns about developments in Iraq".

Saudi Arabia should be held responsible for militant financing and crimes committed by insurgent groups in Iraq, the Baghdad government charged on Tuesday.

Comments from Riyadh indicates it is "siding with terrorism", the cabinet said in a statement issued by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's office.

The World Health Organization says efforts to prevent the spread of a dangerous virus need to be stepped up ahead of the start of the pilgrimage season to Saudi Arabia.

The vast majority of the 701 confirmed cases and 249 deaths worldwide from Middle East respiratory syndrome have occurred in that country.

Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq has said that Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun's chances to become a compromise president are limited because Riyadh rejects a “confrontational” candidate.

Saudi Arabia claims that “it is at an equal distance from everyone,” al-Mashnouq told al-Akhbar newspaper on Tuesday.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar have blamed "sectarian" policies by Iraq's Shiite-led government against the Sunni Arab minority for the unrest that has swept the country.

Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia, whose relations with the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have been strained, also warned against foreign intervention in Iraq.

Qatar's foreign minister has accused Iraq's Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of triggering the unrest that has swept his country through his policies of "marginalization" of the Sunni Arab minority.

Militants spearheaded by powerful jihadist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and joined by supporters of executed dictator Saddam Hussein, have in the past week overrun a large chunk of northern and north-central Iraq, although their advance has since been slowed by a government counter-offensive.

Newspapers in Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia on Sunday blamed Shiite Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for unrest sweeping his country, saying his "sectarian" policies are taking Iraq to a "devastating civil war."

Militants spearheaded by powerful jihadist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and joined by supporters of executed dictator Saddam Hussein, have since Monday overrun a large chunk of northern and north-central Iraq.