U.S. President Barack Obama has predicted that opposition to his nuclear deal with Iran will erode as the agreement is implemented and a "parade of horribles" fails to materialize.

In an interview recorded before Obama left on vacation Friday, he said Ronald Reagan faced similar Republican criticism when he decided to talk to the Soviet Union's Mikhail Gorbachev.

Jailed Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian should learn his fate "within a week" after his secretive trial on accusations of spying on Iran ended Monday, his lawyer said.

The 39-year-old Iranian-American has been in custody more than a year and the allegations were heard behind closed doors, drawing condemnation from his family, employer and press freedom groups.

Speaker Nabih Berri has said that Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun lost the opportunity of bringing his son-in-law as army chief by rejecting the names proposed by Defense Minister Samir Moqbel.

Berri, whose remarks were published in local dailies on Monday, told his visitors that an opportunity, which will not come again, has been lost.

The son of Iran's former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani began a 10-year prison term for financial and security crimes on Sunday, insisting his conviction was politically motivated.

Mehdi Hashemi was in March handed prison sentences totaling 25 years after being convicted on three charges in separate cases involving national security, fraud and embezzlement.

More than two dozen top U.S. scientists, among them nuclear researchers and Nobel prize winners, in a letter to President Barack Obama on Saturday praised the Iran nuclear deal as major security achievement, The New York Times reported.

The two-page letter, from some of the world's most knowledgeable nuclear experts, could prove to be a shot in the arm for Obama, who has launched a major effort to sell the deals to skeptical members of the U.S. Congress.

The detained Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian will be back in court Monday on what could be the final hearing in his trial for spying on Iran, his lawyer said.

"They told me that this will be the last hearing, but I cannot be 100 percent sure because there are always unexpected matters," Rezaian's lawyer Leila Ahsan told AFP by telephone on Saturday.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir will visit Moscow on Tuesday to discuss Syria conflict and the Islamic State group with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign ministry said Saturday.

The two ministers last met in Qatar on August 3 when Lavrov, Jubeir and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry held a three-way meeting, with the situation in Syria topping the agenda.

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon issued a veiled threat against Iranian nuclear experts saying Israel had a right to defend itself and that he was not "responsible for their lives."

In an interview to German weekly Der Spiegel due to appear on Saturday, Yaalon said: "Iran's nuclear ambitions must be stopped in one way or another.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin warned Thursday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's fight with Washington over the Iran nuclear deal threatens to leave the Jewish state isolated.

U.S. President Barack Obama vigorously defended the agreement with Tehran on Wednesday and singled out the Jewish state as its only public opponent.

Iran on Thursday dismissed as "preposterous" claims that it was cleaning up its suspected nuclear military site at Parchin ahead of inspections agreed under a historic nuclear deal with world powers.

Iran's mission to the United Nations said in statement that "extensive construction work" was underway to repair a road near the Parchin complex but denied this amounted to a "hasty cover-up."