Iran

Tehran said that it would send former nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani and deputy foreign minister Saeed Jalili to Rome on Tuesday to meet with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana in a next round of talks aimed at resolving Tehran-West nuclear standoff.

A British company has joined the well-known highway construction project which is due to link Tehran to the northern parts of the country.

Iran, OPEC’s number-two exporter, hit out at the recent hike in oil prices, saying real prices were far lower than the 90-dollar-a-barrel level of last week.

Iranian and UN nuclear watchdog officials started another round of talks on Sunday on Tehran’s nuclear program focusing on P1 and P2 centrifuges.

Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator and secretary of Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Larijani has resigned from his post, Iranian Government Spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham said here on Saturday.

Undersecretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said Tehran would introduce in next two days the person who should replace Ali Larijani in the Islamic Republic’s nuclear negotiations with the EU.

 A senior Iranian military commander said that his troops would reciprocate any aggression with 11,000 rockets fired on enemy positions and bases in the very first minute of enemy invasion.

Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta appreciated Iran’s aids and assistance to his country’s reconstruction.

Ali Kordan, who has recently been appointed as acting deputy oil minister, was assigned here on Saturday as the managing director of Iran’s National Gas Exports Company.

Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai in a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki in Herat on Saturday stressed the strong bonds between the two nations.