Iran wants the six world powers negotiating over its controversial nuclear drive to send top diplomats to crunch talks in Geneva next week, the official news agency IRNA reported Friday.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is to lead Iran's nuclear team at a new round of negotiations with the so-called P5+1 group of the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia plus Germany on October 15 and 16.

MP Oqab Saqr criticized on Friday Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat's claims that the March 14 camp, starting with Saqr, was the first to meddle in the Syrian crisis.

He said in a statement: “The PSP leader has recently resorted, in his contradictory remarks, to mentioning my name when it comes to Syria in order to justify Iran and Hizbullah's invasion of the country.”

Rebels killed five members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard in a clash Thursday in the Kurdish Baneh region in the northwest, media reports said.

"Five members of the Revolutionary Guard were killed in fighting with counter-revolutionaries in Baneh... two others were wounded and taken to hospital," the Fars news agency said, citing sources in the elite military force.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday "a bad deal is worse than no deal" with Iran over its disputed nuclear program, ahead of crunch talks between Tehran and world powers.

In excerpts of an interview with the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published in advance, he called for sanctions on the Tehran regime to be stepped up rather than eased.

Iran's police should keep a lower profile in their enforcement of the rules for women to cover up their bodies, President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday.

His remarks were seen to be keeping a promise of more social freedoms, a cornerstone of the campaign that gave him a surprise victory in the June presidential election.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Tuesday promised Israel to be "clear-eyed" and committed to ensuring that Iran does not develop nuclear weapons as Washington pursues engagement.

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, whose government has pressed for a hard line, visited Washington a week before Iran meets six nations to ease international concerns on its nuclear program that have triggered a U.S.-led campaign of sanctions.

Britain and Iran will each appoint a charge d'affaires to work towards resuming ties severed after a mob attacked the British embassy in Tehran in 2011, Foreign Secretary William Hague said Tuesday.

The diplomats, one level below ambassador, will remain in their respective countries but will look into re-opening the British and Iranian embassies in London and Tehran, Hague told the House of Commons.

A Tehran court has jailed dissident Mehdi Khazali for six years for acting against national security, media reports said Tuesday.

Khazali was charged in Tehran's Revolutionary court for "disturbing national security and propaganda against the establishment," the Fars news agency reported, quoting defense lawyer Mostafa Tork Hamedani.

Iranian Telecommunications Minister Mahmoud Vaezi rejected on Monday any official plans to legalize Facebook and Twitter, although President Hassan Rouhani pledged to reduce online censorship, ISNA news agency reported.

"The ban on networks such as Facebook and Twitter was not supposed to be lifted," said Vaezi.

Iranians are accustomed to jabs from Israel's prime minister. But this one hit a nerve: Claiming clampdowns by Iran's rulers extended to blue jeans.

Social media sites were flooded Monday with Iranians posting photos including an Iranian closet piled high with denim and a young boy in jeans whispering into the ear of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.