Iran’s Parliament Speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel said here on Wednesday that Tehran is verifying a recent proposal raised by Saudi Arabia for the establishment of a consortium outside the Middle-East region to enrich uranium for Iran and other regional countries.

Following my visit to Iran, I am now confident of the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear activities, the last survivor of the nuclear blast in Nagasaki said, calling on the world people to trust the Islamic Republic’s atomic drives.

Lieutenant commander of Iran’s Armed Forces here Wednesday warned Washington against an invasion of the Islamic Republic, saying that his country holds sufficient information, data and possibilities to strike US interests.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad underlined here on Wednesday that his country may not retreat along the nuclear path.

Arvandan Oil and Gas Company Managing Director Salbali Karami said the second phase of development plan of Darkhoein oilfield would become operational in the “Government Week” in 2008 – from Aug. 30 to Sept. 5.

Morvarid Petrochemical Complex Managing Director Safar-Ali Babaii said Olefin 5 would come on stream in September 2008.

Italy opposes any military action against Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program because such an attack could destabilize the entire Middle East, Italian Premier Romano Prodi said Tuesday.

Iran reopened two consulates on Tuesday in the cities of Erbil and Sulaimaniyah in Iraq’s northern Kurdish region, which were closed after US troops raided the one in Erbil and abducted five Iranians in January.

The jailed chief of Turkey’s Kurdish rebels remains a powerful symbol for fighters who revere him with a personality cult. But the guerrilla lieutenants who plot tactics from bases in northern Iraq are coming under increasing scrutiny as Turkey presses Iraq and the United States for their arrest.

The number of Iraqis returning to their country after fleeing abroad is growing, with more than 46,000 people coming home last month, an Iraqi government spokesman said Wednesday.