Iran's parliament curtailed its own power to block a nuclear deal with world powers Sunday, effectively removing a longstanding threat that a final accord could be torn up by lawmakers.

A draft bill presented on Wednesday, which laid down strict criteria for Iran to accept any agreement, had threatened to complicate talks on a final accord, which are due to be finalized by June 30.

Tensions between the U.S. and China are growing over its island-building in the South China Sea and over suspicions that Beijing was behind a massive hack into a federal government server that resulted in the theft of personnel and security clearance records of 14 million employees and contractors.

But both powers have incentives to calm the waters ahead of the Chinese leader's visit to Washington in the fall.

Russia's chief negotiator was cautiously upbeat Friday about  nuclear talks between Iran and six world powers, saying the number of issues still to be resolved before a June 30 deadline "can be counted on one hand."

"Some complex issues remain but there are fewer of them than a week ago," Russian news agency RIA-Novosti quoted negotiator Sergei Ryabkov as saying at the latest round of talks in Vienna.

Iran and Qatar should "get over their differences" and boost relations to ensure regional stability, Qatar's emir has told Iran's president as the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan gets underway.

Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and President Hassan Rouhani also called in a telephone conversation Thursday night for an end to violence in the region during the holy month, Iran's ISNA news agency reported Friday.

Bahrain has seized explosives and bomb-making material smuggled into the country from Iraq and intended to be used in the kingdom and in Saudi Arabia, the interior ministry said Thursday.

A statement said that an investigation indicated that the explosives had been smuggled in by two fugitive Bahraini men who live in Iran and who had been sentenced to death in "terrorist" cases.

The United Nations was scrambling Wednesday to get Yemen peace talks in Geneva moving with both the exiled government and the Iran-backed Yemeni rebels accusing each other of trying to sabotage the process.

The third day of the high stakes talks, launched by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon with an appeal for a badly-needed two-week humanitarian truce, also stumbled over the makeup of the different delegations.

The deputy foreign minister of Iran, whose country is accused of siding with rebels in Yemen, said Tuesday that Tehran will support the outcome of this week's U.N. peace talks.

"We back the Yemeni-Yemeni dialogue in Geneva... and we will support the outcome of the dialogue", Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told reporters at an extraordinary meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), in the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah.

The end of June deadline for a nuclear deal between Iran and world powers is not sacred and extra time may be necessary, a top Iranian negotiator said on Tuesday.

Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany have set June 30 as the date for a comprehensive accord regarding Tehran's disputed nuclear program.

Washington is working to ensure that Iran sanctions can be quickly put back into place without Russian and Chinese support if the Iranians breach any nuclear deal, a top U.S. envoy said Tuesday.

The Obama administration will also reject any final deal with Iran on curbing its nuclear program that fails to ensure access to suspect Iranian military sites, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, vowed to lawmakers.

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani received a fresh challenge to his authority on Tuesday when 60 lawmakers filed impeachment papers seeking to sack his education minister.

The motion, which accuses Ali Asghar Fani of being incapable of performing his duties, faces a vote in the conservative-dominated parliament on June 24, the official IRNA news agency reported.