WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China and Iran are balking at full cooperation with a U.N. organization monitoring the international nuclear test ban treaty, raising fears that this could further undermine the embattled pact. ... more

Tehran, March 8, IRNA -- Iran's former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani warned here Friday that the United States was seeking deals for long presence in Afghanistan, quite similar to the one it had signed with Cuba to have military bases in the Guantanamo Bay. ... more

PKK refuses Iranian pressure for a return to violence in fear of losing Western support, intelligence sources say. Turkish intelligence sources have said Iran has maintained support for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which pulled out of Turkey after a 15-year terrorist campaign in the country's southeast. ... more

The Iranian President Muhammad Khatami on Wednesday in Tehran received the Syrian foreign minister Farouk al-Shara who conveyed a message from President Bashar al-Assad pertaining to latest developments at the regional and international levels and stressed Syria's solidarity with Iran's leadership, government and people. ... more

Majlis Speaker Mehdi Karrubi, who is visiting Italy, yesterday met Italian Speaker of Chamber of Deputies Pier Ferdinando Cassini as well as Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. During these meetings, they discussed expansion of ties between the two countries. ... more

HSBC Investment Bank has signed an export credit loan facility of $33.6 million, guaranteed by UK's Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD), with Iran's Bank Tejarat. ... more

SINGAPORE (Dow Jones)--Iran's state-owned National Iranian Oil Co. (C.NIO) has kept most of its March-loading term crude prices to Asia unchanged, a company official said Friday. ... more

Urumiyeh: Simon Shercliff, the second secretary at the British embassy in Iran, has told ISNA in an interview that the issue of appointing a British ambassador to Iran will not have much impact on bilateral relations. ... more

Rome, March 8, IRNA -- Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, in a meeting with Iranian Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karroubi here Thursday, voiced readiness to visit the Islamic Republic. ... more

Tehran, 8 March: The transport minister of the interim-Afghan government has said: Iran has not taken practical measures for the reconstruction of Afghanistan. In a short interview with an economic correspondent of ISNA, while stating this, Dr Soltan Hamid Soltan added: ... more

TEHRAN (AP)--Iran plans to repatriate 400,000 Afghan refugees within a year, and they will start returning to their country soon, Iranian newspapers reported Thursday. ... more

Tehran, March 8, IRNA -- Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov in a telephone conversation with President Seyed Mohammad Khatami on Friday discussed the latest developments in the region as well as the Caspian Sea issue. ... more

Iran's hardline judiciary yesterday closed another pro-reformist weekly, Asr e Ma and sentenced its managing director Mohammad Salamati to 17 months in jail. Asr e Ma is owned by the Islamic Revolution Mujahidin Organisation (IRMO), the oldest left-wing group established following Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979. ... more

Secretary of State Colin Powell softened the tone of verbal jousts with Europe over US foreign policy, sending a conciliatory message to Washington's trans-Atlantic allies by asserting that "multilateralism is good." ... more

Since 11 September the stormy and often incomprehensible developments taking place in the entire world, as well as in our region, have caused serious anxiety in our neighbour Iran. ... more

The forthcoming deployment of some 200 US "military advisers" to Georgia, in Russia's back yard, is ostensibly to put some backbone into beleaguered President Eduard Shevardnadze's military forces, to help him restore his government's authority over the lawless Pankisi Gorge ... ... more

Ramin Serry was only 10 years old when he became a target. It was Nov. 4, 1979, and 52 Americans were taken hostage in Iran. Although Serry, born in Chicago, had always thought of himself as an all-American kid, on that cool day in November he first realized he was not like everyone else. ... more

... Elie Abrahami, born in Iran 60 years ago, sells more art abroad than in Israel. His paintings have been acquired by the most important museums in the world, including the Metropolitan, Guggenheim and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the British Museum in London, the Musee National d'Art Moderne in Paris ... ... more

If Saudi Arabia's Middle East peace initiative is carefully nurtured, analysts say, it could provide a viable framework for peacemaking. But its success depends on the kind of support the initiative receives from Arab states, the US government, and Israel's "peace camp" - those who favor a negotiated solution with the Palestinians. ... more

A senior general said Thursday that Turkey's efforts to join the European Union were doomed to fail, and called for closer ties with Russia and Iran instead. Gen. Tuncer Kilinc -- head of the powerful National Security Council -- spoke of his doubts about the EU quest at a conference on Turkish foreign relations organized by the military. ... more

JERUSALEM (March 8) - Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud met with representatives of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon this week and left the door open for more direct meetings in the future, the Prime Minister's Office confirmed yesterday. ... more

If one were to put oneself inside the mind of the Iraqi leadership at this particular moment, what would be the "rational" course of conduct to pursue, given the dire American threats being made daily against it? ... more

AMERICA has been quietly building up forces in the Gulf in readiness for the coming campaign against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. The RAF has also moved Jaguar fighter bombers to Oman, ostensibly for exercises with the Omani air force. In the event of a conflict the aircraft could supplement Tornado and Jaguar bombers already based in Kuwait and Turkey. Although Washington has not yet decided how to unseat Saddam, the decision that he should be removed from power has already been made. US officials are firmly convinced that Britain will join the campaign, whatever the rhetoric from London. ... more