Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived on Thursday in Russia for talks with President Vladimir Putin, in a last-minute bid to influence an emerging nuclear deal with Iran strongly opposed by the Jewish state.

An Agence France Presse correspondent accompanying the Israeli premier said Netanyahu arrived in Moscow in the early afternoon and made no comment to reporters during the flight.

Prime Minister David Cameron telephoned President Hassan Rouhani Tuesday on the eve of nuclear talks in Geneva, becoming the first British premier to call an Iranian leader in over a decade, Downing Street said.

Cameron and Rouhani discussed the recent improvements in bilateral ties between London and Tehran, the conflict in Syria and the latest round of negotiations over Iran's nuclear program, it said in a statement.

President Barack Obama asked key senators Tuesday for a delay in imposing new sanctions on Iran, but apparently failed to win over hardened skeptics of a proposed interim nuclear deal with Tehran.

Obama met the lawmakers at the White House on the eve of the next round of nuclear talks between the P5+1 powers and Iran in Geneva, and as some senators mull increasing sanctions on the Islamic Republic -- a move opposed by the administration.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned on Tuesday the terrorist bombing near the Iranian embassy in Beirut's Bir Hassan neighborhood.

He called on “all in Lebanon to recognize that such appalling and indiscriminate acts of violence target all in Lebanon.”

Britain's envoy to Tehran has spoken with his Iranian counterpart about exchanging diplomatic delegations and upgrading ties, Iran's ISNA news agency reported Tuesday.

The phone call between British charge d'affaires Ajay Sharma and Iran's Hassan Habibollah-zadeh comes amid a thaw in relations following the election this year of Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, a reputed moderate who has reached out to the West.

At odds with ally Washington over an emerging nuclear agreement with Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will on Wednesday take his campaign against the deal to Moscow.

Russia is a member of the P5+1 group -- alongside the United States, China, France, Britain and Germany -- which has been struggling to reach a deal to freeze or curb Iran's nuclear activities in exchange for some relief from international sanctions.

Iran's foreign minister left for an brief official visit to Italy Tuesday morning, Iranian media reported, before he travels to Geneva where he will represent Tehran in nuclear talks with world powers.

In a stopover in Rome that will last for "a few hours," Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will meet his Italian counterpart Emma Bonino to discuss bilateral, regional and international issues, Iranian media said.

Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon Ghazanfar Rokn Abadi confirmed the death of Iranian cultural adviser Sheikh Ibrahim al-Ansari in the twin blasts near the Iranian embassy in Beirut on Tuesday.

He told al-Manar television that al-Ansari died from wounds he sustained in the attack.

Iran on Tuesday rejected as "baseless" claims by an exiled opposition group that it is conducting military nuclear activities in a hidden underground site, the official IRNA news agency reported.

"(The) baseless remarks about the existence of secret nuclear installations in Iran... are strongly rejected," Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation spokesman Behrouz Kamalvand told IRNA.

President Barack Obama will personally urge powerful U.S. senators Tuesday to hold off on imposing more sanctions on Iran, to allow high stakes nuclear talks to succeed.

Obama will meet leading members of key Senate committees on the eve of the next round of talks between world powers and Iran in Geneva aimed at clinching an interim deal to boost diplomacy on ending a nuclear showdown.