Iran

Iran and Malaysia are set to form a joint committee to exchange more tourists and help expand their tourism industry.

Iran’s commerce minister here on Sunday said that the Islamic Republic and some Latin countries have decided to establish a joint shipping company to further expand economic relations.

Iran warned foreign oil and gas firms on Sunday that it will implement major projects with domestic companies alone if they do not speed up the completion of negotiations.

Muhammad Makkawi, the project director of Dana’s affiliate Crescent Petroleum, said that in the coming months some 600 million cfd of Iranian natural gas would start to be delivered to end users in the UAE early next year.

The Middle East has acquired immense strategic value as one of the determining fulcrums in the global balance of power due to its being the world’s largest known storehouse of low-cost energy supplies.

Iran has shut down several traditional tea houses popular with Iranians and foreign tourists alike in historic cities because they offer water pipes, a newspaper said on Sunday.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, in a meeting with Japan’s deputy foreign minister Itsunori Onodera, underlined Tehran’s industrious efforts to release a Japanese student who was abducted in southern Iran a few weeks ago.

A prominent Iranian MP Sunday dismissed a recent proposal raised by Saudi officials for the establishment of a consortium to enrich uranium for Iran and other regional countries, saying that the Islamic Republic does not need to supply nuclear fuel from another country.

An Iranian MP said that the Untied States sought to dominate the Middle-East and its oil reserves under the pretext of campaign against terrorism, al-Qaeda and Bin Laden in particular.

Iran’s Interior Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi Tuesday dismissed West’s efforts to prevent Iran’s nuclear progress as useless, stressing that the Iranian nation would not give up even an iota of its rights.