Middle Orient

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will pay a two-day visit to Turkey this week for talks expected to focus on bilateral ties, a government official in Ankara said Tuesday.

TUNCELI, Turkey (Reuters) – Nine Turkish soldiers including a lieutenant colonel were killed on Monday when their vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device planted by separatist guerrillas, military sources told Reuters.

DAMASCUS  – Syria on Sunday ruled out the UN atomic watchdog making a second inspection of a contested site bombed by Israel last year and alleged by the United States to be the location of a nuclear facility.

TEHRAN, (ISNA)-Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will trip to Turkey on Thursday to meet the country’s high-ranking officials.

TEHRAN,  (ISNA)-Iraq’s Kurdish regional prime minister Nechirvan Barzani made sure Iranian businessmen over Kurdistan’s security and said the region with great potentials and natural resources has paved the way for making investment.

TEHRAN,  (ISNA)-Iran’s president deputy in administrative affairs Ali Saeedlou met with the premier of the Iraqis’ Kurdish regional government Nechirvan Barzani in Tehran.

Syria has rejected the IAEA’s request for a second inspection of its alleged nuclear site, bombed by Israel last September.

CAIRO (Reuters) – The Sunday edition of the independent Egyptian newspaper al-Dustour, which contained a story about the murder of a Lebanese singer in Dubai, disappeared from the market on Saturday, officials said.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Mahmoud Darwish, whose poetry encapsulated the Palestinian cause, will get the equivalent of a state funeral in the West Bank on Tuesday — an honor only previously accorded to PLO leader Yasser Arafat.

BRESSANONE, Italy (Reuters) – Pope Benedict called on Sunday for an immediate halt to the fighting between Russia and Georgia over the breakaway South Ossetia region and urged world powers to help find a peaceful solution.