Iraq’s embattled Nouri al-Maliki came to Syria on Monday on his first visit here as prime minister amid efforts to garner neighbors’ support for curbing violence at home.

Iraqi officials say a roadside bomb has killed the governor of the southern Shi’ite majority province of Muthanna.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday explained achievements of his tour to Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Haddad-Adel: Ambassadors should represent religious values. Parliament Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel said on Thursday that Iranian ambassadors are expected represent the religious and Islamic values in the host countries.

The United States and Azerbaijan today signed an agreement to conduct a feasibility study on building two pipelines under the Caspian Sea. Under the agreement, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) will give Azerbaijan’s State Oil Company a $1.7 million grant to conduct the study.

The United States is moving toward blacklisting Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a “terrorist” organization, subjecting at least part of the entity to financial sanctions in a new move against the Islamic republic, a US official said Tuesday.

Officials in Jerusalem said on Wednesday that Syria’s declarations that it did not want a war were important but that its actions would determine the future, Israel Radio reported.

The cooperation between Iran and Syria has recently broadened in a variety of areas, including the military, security, economic and scientific spheres.

Iraq’s Prime Minister, Nouri Maliki, has called for a summit of the nation’s main political factions in an attempt to break Iraq’s political paralysis. 

Within the last four days, Pakistan’s President General Pervez Musharraf has welcomed more than 600 Afghan and Pakistani tribal leaders in a joint peace meeting to find solutions for the problems of violence and instability in both side of the Pakistani-Afghan border.