He's hardly best buddies with Benjamin Netanyahu and his drive for a Palestinian state is comatose, so why did Barack Obama pick Israel to fire up his legacy-boosting second term diplomacy?

The U.S. president sprung a surprise last week by announcing he would pick the turmoil-laced Middle East for the first trip since re-election.

A Kuwaiti MP on Sunday filed to question in parliament the interior minister over allegations that his ministry was dealing with Israel and for failing to control opposition-led protests.

Shiite lawmaker Faisal al-Duwaisan claimed in his grilling request that the interior ministry has purchased a border security system to fortify the emirate's border with Iraq from SENSTAR Corp in Canada.

Bahrain's key political players launched a new round of talks on Sunday to try to resolve the kingdom's two-year crisis, after opposition groups made a last-minute decision to join a national dialogue.

Participants gathered at a tourist resort south of Manama, where the first session of the dialogue -- which will convene three times a week -- were held behind closed doors, Agence France Presse reported.

Yemen on Sunday demanded an explanation from Tehran over an Iran-linked arms shipment seized last month and rejected interference in its internal affairs, state news agency Saba reported.

"The Yemeni government will not allow interference in its internal affairs from any party, or for its territories to become a site for proxy wars," Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi told Iran's ambassador to Sanaa, Mahmoud Hassan Zada.

King Abdullah II on Sunday told newly elected MPs that he seeks to reach "consensus" with them before naming a prime minister, and hailed the "historic transformation" towards parliamentary government in Jordan.

"We will start... this new approach by consulting over the government's formation with the lower house and parliamentary blocs as they take shape, in order to reach consensus that leads to the designation of a prime minister" he told the opening of parliament.

A bomb exploded on the roof of an Iraqi satellite channel's offices a day after the broadcaster aired a caller's criticism of a revered Kurdish leader, an official said on Sunday.

The explosion in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah came as Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticized the autonomous Iraqi region for infringing on free speech by wrongly detaining journalists, activists and opposition figures for insulting public figures.

Kuwait's appeals court on Sunday suspended the implementation of a three-year jail term for three former opposition MPs sentenced last week for insulting the emir, their lawyer said.

"The court set them free until their case has been settled," Mohammad al-Jumia wrote on his Twitter account.

Palestinian factions meeting in Cairo wrapped up two days of talks aimed at reconciling the rival Hamas and Fatah late on Saturday although divisions remained over how exactly to apply the deal, an official said.

The talks, which began on Friday, were held under the umbrella of the provisional governing body of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali's gamble on forming a new government in defiance of his own Islamist party after the assassination of opposition head Chokri Belaid left Tunisia in political limbo on Sunday.

After clashes with demonstrators between Wednesday and Friday that the interior ministry said left one policemen dead and 59 colleagues wounded, security forces remain on a state of alert with the army deployed nationwide.

Joint Gulf force the Peninsula Shield began a 17-day exercise in Kuwait on Sunday as officials said the war games were not related to unrest in the region.

"The exercise was prescheduled and agreed for years. It is unrelated to any regional or political events," the head of Kuwaiti army public relations, Brigadier Abdulaziz al-Rayes, was cited as saying by the KUNA news agency.