Iranian deputy commerce minister said that the total volume of Iran’s trade exchanges with the Arab countries of the Middle-East amounted to $16 bln during the last (Iranian) year.

Iranian government allowed Ministry of Road and Transportation to endorse a temporary agreement with Tajikistan on transportation of goods and passengers via the roads linking the two Persian-language-speaking countries.

Chairman of Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaoddin Boroujerdi said the upcoming visit to Iran by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki could be followed by great achievements.

 A long-awaited agreement on Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project would be reached in the next two to three months, Iranian Ambassador to India Seyed Mehdi Nabizadeh said.

Iran and the US held “frank and serious” security talks chaired by Iraq as they inaugurated a joint security committee aimed at curbing the country’s rampant insurgency.

Nearly three decades after defecting to the West, former Romanian Foreign Intelligence deputy commander Ion Mihai Pacepa appeared on a Romanian TV news programme last week and confirmed that the late communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu’s regime plotted to kill expatriates working at Radio Free Europe (RFE).

Iranian and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) teams of experts started the next round of talks to resolve the remaining issues between the two sides.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon in a phone conversation with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki called for Tehran’s assistance to resolve the hostage-taking crisis in Afghanistan.

Iran, Iraq and the United States started a study of the root causes of insecurities in Iraq in a trilateral expert-level committee meeting in Baghdad on Monday.

Iranian oil minister expressed the hope that the final contract for the export of Iran’s gas to Pakistan and India through a multi-billion dollar pipeline – known as IPI pipeline – would be signed by the leaders of the three states in the near future.