Iran

A senior aide to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad signaled in comments published on Monday that he would nominate Acting Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari to take the post permanently in OPEC’s second largest producer.

A team of 13 Iranian officers, led by the deputy inspector general of police, Brig. Gen. Ali Reza Jazini Dorcheh, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ugandan Police chief, Maj. Gen. Kale Kayihura, on Saturday.

A Turkish court on Monday resumed the trial of suspects in the killing of an ethnic Armenian journalist — a case widely seen as a test of whether the judiciary can fully investigate possible negligence by authorities.

In the framework of the UN General Assembly’s 62nd session in New York, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad agreed to build a railroad connecting Iran and Turkey.

Iran on Sunday dismissed a recent approval by the US House of Representatives to blacklist the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist group, and said that the word terrorist is a proper title for the military and security forces of the United States.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is due to meet his US counterpart George W. Bush on Monday to discuss the release of an Iranian businessman and advisor to the governor general of Iran’s Kermanshah province who was arrested by the US troops in Iraq earlier this month.

The United States is seeking to attain its interests through disintegrating Iraq, a member of the Iranian parliament’s majority fraction said here on Sunday.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega appreciated the medical aids and assistance by Iran’s Red Crescent Society to the people of his country during the recent rainstorms which killed and wounded a large number of Nicaraguans.

British consultant engineers are waiting for the approval of the Iranian road and transportation ministry to participate in the giant project for the construction of Tehran-North Highway, an informed source said.

The strong stances voiced by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his visit to New York thwarted the United States’ attempts to pass a new resolution at the UN Security Council against Iran, a prominent Iranian MP said.