Saudi Arabia has barred an Iranian plane carrying Muslim pilgrims to Mecca from entering its airspace because the flight had not applied for a permit, aviation authorities said Thursday.

The plane was carrying 260 passengers heading to perform the lesser pilgrimage, but it was denied access to the kingdom's airspace Wednesday afternoon "due to the lack of a permit" to fly to Saudi Arabia, the kingdom's aviation authority said.

The Saudi Ambassador to Beirut, Ali Awadh Asiri, has urged Hizbullah without naming it to deal with its own issues rather than meddle in Riyadh's affairs.

The parties that “shove” themselves into the Saudi-led coalition's move against Huthi rebels in Yemen and which “have the audacity” to criticize Saudi Arabia “should deal with their own affairs,” Asiri said in remarks published on Thursday.

Iran and Pakistan on Wednesday pledged to work to find a negotiated solution to the conflict in Yemen, as the Saudi-led air campaign against rebels nears its third week.

A military coalition of largely Sunni Muslim countries led by Riyadh has been bombarding Huthi Shiite rebels in Yemen in a bid to restore the government of fugitive President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.

The Emirati foreign minister said Wednesday that any Saudi-led ground operation against rebels in Yemen would need a green light from the country's President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.

"We cannot limit our options" in Yemen, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan told reporters, questioned on whether the Saudi-led coalition of which the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a member planned to send in ground troops.

The EU put more than 30 Iranian shipping companies and a top bank back on its nuclear sanctions list on Wednesday after a European court had earlier struck them off citing insufficient evidence.

Last week, EU-mediated talks between six major powers and Iran on its contested nuclear program produced a framework accord which could see all sanctions lifted in return for measures to prevent Tehran acquiring atomic weapons.

An Afghanistan-based jihadist group known for its past ties to Pakistani intelligence on Wednesday vowed to send "thousands" of fighters to Yemen in support of Saudi Arabia.

Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin was one of the main Sunni insurgent groups that fought against Soviet troops and later re-emerged to fight U.S.-led coalition forces after 2001.

Head of the Mustaqbal Movement MP Saad Hariri remarked on Wednesday that Lebanon was “not in need of further problems created by Hizbullah”, the latest of which was dragging Tele Liban in the political and media battlefield in the country.

He condemned in a statement the use of “Lebanese media outlets to target friendly Arab countries and Saudi Arabia similar to the practices adopted by some suspicious voices and yellow journalism that want Lebanon to become a partner in antagonizing its Arab brothers for the sake of Iran and its regional policies.”

The United States has stepped up weapons deliveries in support of a Saudi-led coalition resisting the advance of Shiite rebels in Yemen, a senior U.S. official said Tuesday.

"Saudi Arabia is sending a strong message to the Huthis and their allies that they cannot overrun Yemen by force," Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters in the Saudi capital.

Eight Iranian border guards have been killed in a clash with Sunni rebels who had infiltrated from neighboring Pakistan, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported on Tuesday.

"Armed terrorists entered Iran from Pakistan and clashed with border guards, killing eight soldiers before fleeing back to Pakistan," Ali Asghar Mirshekari, deputy governor of Sistan-Baluchistan province, told the news agency.

An Iranian asylum-seeker is recovering after a 40-day hunger strike, Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said Tuesday, but insisted the near-fatal protest would not influence the government's immigration policy.

Saeed Hassanloo, 25, is the second Iranian asylum-seeker to take on an extended hunger strike in recent months after a 33-year-old ended a similar protest in January -- both over Canberra's treatment of their claims for resettlement in Australia.