Iran's new envoy to Britain is to make his first visit to London this week, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Wednesday, as ties thaw between the two countries.

The visit by Hassan Habibollah-Zadeh follows a trip to Tehran last week by his British counterpart Ajay Sharma.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague announced Tuesday that London intends to donate $1.6 million to the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon, describing the move as a “voluntary contribution."

"The UK is committed to supporting security, stability and justice for the people of Lebanon," Hague said in a written statement to the British parliament on the UK's contribution to the STL.

A man accused of the gruesome murder of a British soldier told his trial on Monday that he loves al-Qaida and considers the Islamist militants to be his "brothers."

Michael Adebolajo, 28, sat surrounded by security guards as he began giving evidence in his trial at London's Old Bailey court.

A British military helicopter made a forced landing in the West Bank on Sunday with no casualties, the Israeli military said, denying reports it landed in an Israeli minefield.

"A helicopter of the British Royal Air Force made an emergency landing in the Jordan Valley due to a technical fault," a spokeswoman told Agence France Presse.

British police were Wednesday for the first time interviewing three women allegedly held captive by a Maoist couple in London for 30 years, as fresh details of their secretive commune emerged.

An elderly Indian-born man and his Tanzanian wife -- believed to have led a small Marxist splinter group in the 1970s -- were arrested last week accused of keeping the women as "slaves" in a south London flat.

Britain has made a formal protest to Madrid after Spanish officials opened British diplomatic bags on the border with Gibraltar in a "serious infringement" of the Vienna Convention, the Foreign Office said on Tuesday.

The incident on November 22 is the latest flare-up between Britain and Spain over the British-held territory in recent months.

Authorities in northern Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region have arrested a British and French nationals for spying, officials said.

"We have arrested a network of spies who entered the country while disguised as NGO workers," Puntland Security minister Kalif Ise Mudan told reporters Monday.

Iran and Britain on Monday named non-resident charges d'affaires to each other's capital, in moves aimed at restoring diplomatic ties severed after the British embassy was ransacked in 2011.

Mohammad Hassan "Habibollah-zadeh will travel to London in the near future to examine the situation of Iran's possessions and buildings in Britain and to improve consular activities," a foreign ministry spokeswoman said, quoted by Fars news agency.

Britain was braced on Sunday for its worst storm in a decade, with heavy rain and winds of more than 80 miles (130 kilometers) an hour set to batter the south of the country.

The Met Office national weather center warned of falling trees, damage to buildings and disruption to power supplies and transport when the storm hits overnight to Monday.

Britain said Friday it would complain to Spain about a Spanish research boat that it said unlawfully entered disputed waters off Gibraltar, reviving a simmering diplomatic dispute.

Britain's foreign ministry said the oceanographic survey vessel accompanied by Spanish police boats made unlawful incursions on Wednesday and Friday into waters off the British overseas territory on the southern tip of Spain.