Iran plans to send aid to the beleaguered Gaza Strip after Egypt said it would allow the shipment to enter the Palestinian territory, an Iranian diplomatic source said on Friday.

The official IRNA news agency said Cairo had agreed to transfer humanitarian aid bound for the coastal enclave, citing a foreign ministry source in Tehran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will visit ally Moscow next week, the Islamic republic's ambassador to Russia wrote on Facebook Friday, media reports said.

Mehdi Sanaei said that Zarif will travel on August 29 to meet his counterpart Sergei Lavrov, saying only that their talks would focus on bilateral, regional and international issues.

Iran is ready to join international action against jihadists in Iraq provided the West lifts crippling sanctions, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Thursday.

Usually, it is the United States that doles out rebukes over human rights abuses to the troublesome country of the day.

An Iranian journalist who covered parliament for pro-reform media has been released on bail almost three months after being detained, her lawyer said on Thursday. 

Saba Azarpeyk was freed late Wednesday on bail of two billion rials ($65,000), set by prosecutors overseeing crimes related to media and culture, Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaie told the official news agency IRNA.

Iran's conservative-dominated parliament on Wednesday voted to sack the science minister for wanting to recruit people accused of involvement in the 2009 protest movement.

Reza Faraji Dana, whose responsibilities included Iran's universities, was sacked after a censure motion went against him.

Human Rights Watch on Tuesday urged authorities in Iran to release immediately and unconditionally dozens of prisoners jailed in a northern city "for exercising their basic rights".

In a lengthy report, the New York-based body studied the cases of 189 people locked up in Karaj, 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of the capital Tehran.

Three journalists -- including the Washington Post's Tehran correspondent -- arrested in Iran were detained for security reasons, the country's prosecutor said in a statement published on Monday.

It was the first time an Iranian official has given a reason for the July 22 arrest of the Post's Jason Rezaian and a photographer, both of whom are dual U.S.-Iranian citizens.

A strong 6.1 magnitude earthquake struck the province of Ilam in western Iran on Monday, injuring at least 250 people and causing extensive damage to buildings, Iranian media said.

The U.S. Geological Survey, reporting the magnitude of the quake at 6.3, said it struck 36 kilometers (22 miles) southeast of the city of Abdanan, near the border with Iraq.

U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos is to visit Iran on Sunday for two days of talks on expanding humanitarian cooperation amid a mounting thaw between Tehran and the West.

"The visit will also be an opportunity to draw attention to Iran’s considerable experience and expertise in disaster management and humanitarian response and encourage Iranian engagement in the debate about the future of the humanitarian system, ahead of the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016," a U.N. statement said.