Iran on Wednesday welcomed a plan for its foreign minister to visit Saudi Arabia, stressing the need to boost relations after years of strained ties.

The two countries have been at odds over Syria's civil war and the fallout from unrest in Bahrain.

Saudi Arabia is likely to lift a ban that urged Saudi nationals to refrain from traveling to Lebanon due to the critical security situation in the country, LBCI reported on Tuesday.

"Saudi Arabia is inclined to lift the travel ban to Lebanon at the end of May,” LBCI said.

Saudi Arabia is ready to negotiate better relations with regional rival Iran, Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told reporters in Riyadh on Tuesday.

His comments came as major powers held a fresh round of nuclear talks with Iran over its controversial nuclear program amid a rapprochement between Tehran and the West.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel arrived in the Saudi Arabia Tuesday, the first leg of a regional tour focusing on Iran's nuclear program and Syria's civil war.

Hagel will hold talks with Saudi officials and on Wednesday he will meet Gulf Cooperation Council defense ministers in the first US-GCC meeting of its kind since 2008.

Saudi health officials say another five people have died after contracting a potentially fatal Middle Eastern respiratory virus that has sickened hundreds.

The Saudi Health Ministry provided the death toll in its latest update on the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome late on Monday.

Saudi Arabia has announced 13 more deaths from the MERS coronavirus, as the World Health Organization prepared for an emergency meeting over worries about the spread of the disease.

The Middle East Respiratory System coronavirus has now killed 139 people and infected 480 in the kingdom since it first appeared in 2012, accounting for the bulk of cases registered across the globe.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will fly to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel next week for talks that are expected to focus on Iran's nuclear program and Syria's civil war, officials said Friday.

"This trip will be the secretary's third to the Middle East in just over a year, and it will advance America's regional strategy in that region," Pentagon press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby told a news conference.

Saudi Arabia's death toll from MERS has risen by five to 126 fatalities since the mystery respiratory virus first appeared in the kingdom in 2012, the health ministry said Friday.

Two men, aged 47 and 60, died in the western city of Medina on Wednesday, an 84-year-old man died in Mecca and a fourth died in the Red Sea port of Jeddah.

Saudi Arabia has urged the indefinite postponement of an Arab League meeting on Syria that Riyadh itself called, the group's deputy chief Ahmed Ben Helli said on Friday.

The meeting of foreign ministers was originally called for Monday by Riyadh, which backs rebels in the conflict, to discuss "steps that need to be taken to deal with the Syrian tragedy".

Hizbullah has informed Saudi Arabia that its candidate for the presidency is Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Friday.

The daily said that Riyadh has sent several messages to the party asking it whether it wanted the elections to be held anytime soon or whether it preferred vacuum.