Iran

TEHRAN (FNA) – Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar here on Monday held talks with his Azeri counterpart Safar Abiyev over expansion of defense cooperation.

TEHRAN (FNA) – The Iranian economy minister stated that the value of foreign investment in the country has reached $10.7 billion in the first nine months of the current Iranian year to March 2008.

TEHRAN (FNA) – In a meeting with a journalist from Japan’s Tokyo Shimbun daily, Iran’s vice-president in charge of tourism has invited Japanese tourists to visit Iran.

TEHRAN (FNA) – The international community must increase its diplomatic efforts to resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview aired Monday.

TEHRAN (FNA) – Iran has begun importing 1 million cubic meters of natural gas per day from Azerbaijan, in an apparent move to help compensate for shortages caused by a cut in Turkmen deliveries.

TEHRAN (FNA) – An Iraqi delegation arrived in Iran on Monday to discuss the Algiers agreement which defines their common border.

TEHRAN (FNA) – Iran has started pumping oil from its biggest onshore oilfield of Azadegan in the southwest of the country, a project that was originally to be developed with a Japanese partner.

Iran established its oil bourse Sunday in a free trade zone on the Persian Gulf Island of Kish and 100 tons of polyethylene consignment was traded at the market’s opening on the island, which houses the offices of about 100 Iranian and foreign oil companies.

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has called on all loyalists to the Islamic Revolution to maintain unity and to ignore minor and unimportant issues.

TEHRAN – The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Monday Israel would soon be destroyed by the “hands of Hezbollah”, the Lebanese group which is backed by the Islamic Republic, Fars News Agency reported.