CIA chief John Brennan made a "secret" visit to Israel last week to discuss an emerging nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported on Tuesday.

It came as a June 30 deadline looms for a deal that would row back Iran's nuclear programme in return for relief from sanctions, which Israel has long opposed, causing friction with the White House.

Brennan met his counterpart Mossad chief Tamir Pardo and other intelligence officials, as well as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Haaretz reported, citing "senior Israeli officials."

They discussed the emerging Iran deal and Tehran's "subversive" activities around the Middle East.

The prime minister's office and the defence ministry declined to comment on the report.

Netanyahu's staunch opposition to any agreement with Iran has helped bring his relations with US President Barack Obama to an all-time low.

In March, the Israeli premier controversially took his campaign to the US Congress, calling on lawmakers to block any deal between the powers and the Jewish state's arch-foe.

The Iran issue was also set to be high on the agenda of a separate visit to Israel by the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey.

Dempsey, who arrived on Monday, is due to hold talks with Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon and armed forces chief of staff Lieutenant General Gadi Eizenkot.

UN keeps Iran sanctions monitors
United Nations, United States (AFP) June 9, 2015 - The UN Security Council on Tuesday voted to keep intact a panel of experts monitoring sanctions on Iran as negotiations on a nuclear deal head into the final stretch.

The 15-member council unanimously adopted a resolution renewing the mandate of the panel until July 2016.

Diplomats said no action would be taken to change sanctions monitoring at the United Nations until a final deal on curbing Iran's nuclear program was reached.

The permanent Security Council members - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - plus Germany are hoping to finalize, by the end of this month, a landmark agreement reached in April that would address decades of suspicions about Iran's nuclear activities.

A final deal would pave the way for action by the Security Council to scrap six resolutions adopted on Iran's nuclear program since 2006, four of which imposed sanctions targeting the government, Iranian nationals and Iranian entities.

Led by Georgian ex-foreign minister Salome Zurabishvili, the eight-member panel of experts was set up in 2006 and presents regular reports to a Security Council sanctions committee on whether Iran is abiding by the resolutions.