Iranian negotiators hold this week a series of meetings in Vienna meant to lay the groundwork for substantial progress in talks with world powers in Geneva on November 7-8.

On Monday U.N. atomic watchdog head Yukiya Amano will meet Abbass Araqchi, deputy foreign minister and Tehran's chief nuclear negotiator in Iran's fresh diplomatic push under new President Hassan Rouhani.

Republican lawmakers urged President Barack Obama on Sunday to repair U.S. ties with Saudi Arabia, after the critical Gulf ally protested against Washington's policy on Syria and Iran.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers said the rift with Riyadh has been developing over the past two years, pointing to a 2011 U.S. decision to keep the Syrian conflict at bay and the "quick rush to the sweet talk" from Iran on its suspect nuclear program in recent months.

Iran's parliament, dominated by conservatives, on Sunday approved two new members of moderate President Hassan Rouhani's government but rejected a third, media reported.

Ali Asghar Fani was approved for education and Reza Faraji Dana for the science, research and technology portfolio, but legislators rejected Reza Salehi Amiri, who had been nominated to become minister of sports and youth.

A top commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards said his forces killed three rebels and arrested three others in a western region that borders Iraqi Kurdistan, media reported on Sunday.

"During clashes that took place Friday in the Baneh region, three members of a terrorist group were killed and two others were arrested," Mehr news agency quoted Brigadier General Mohammad Hassan Rajabi as saying.

Turkey said Saturday it was open to new bids in its plan to acquire its first long-range anti-missile system, should its controversial negotiations with China come to nothing.

"It is not a finalized deal yet. If U.S. and European companies make us better offers, we will continue to talk with them," said Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who was quoted by Turkish newspapers.

Jeffrey Feltman, U.N. under secretary general for political affairs, has described Hizbullah members fighting in Syria as “soldiers of fortune,” saying they have contributed to the rising sectarian tensions linked to Syria's war.

“Hizbullah’s role inside Syria, which is a violation of their own national government’s policy of disassociation, has been part of the fuel of the rising sectarian tensions that characterize this conflict,” Feltman told pan-Arab daily al-Hayat in an interview published on Friday.

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon has said "civil war" was raging in Lebanon between Hizbullah and Global Jihad members who have attempted to drag Israel into the conflict.

"To those who are not yet aware, there is already a civil war in Lebanon. Global Jihad, which has infiltrated Lebanon and is attacking Hizbullah, is blowing up car bombs in Dahieh and is firing rockets at Dahieh and the Bekaa Valley," Yaalon said Thursday in reference to recent attacks on Hizbullah's strongholds.

The United States on Thursday offered $1 million to help resettle Iranian opposition exiles currently in Iraq, contributing to a U.N. appeal in the wake of violence.

More than 3,000 members of the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, allowed by late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to operate in the country, are staying at a former U.S. military base known as Camp Hurriya, or Liberty, on Baghdad's outskirts.

Iran on Thursday angrily rejected as "unfair" and politically-motivated a U.N. report which said the Islamic republic's human rights record showed no sign of improvement.

The report "describes the human rights situation in Iran in a completely unfair light and with political motivations," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said in a statement carried by the state broadcaster.

Iran has temporarily halted its production of enriched uranium to 20 percent purity as it has sufficient stocks to fuel its Tehran research reactor, a lawmaker was quoted Thursday as saying.

"There is no production at all ... as right now there is no need for the production of 20 percent (enriched) uranium," the parliament website reported conservative MP Hossein Naqavi Hosseini as saying.