Middle Orient

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.

TEHRAN, (ISNA)-Iran will do its best to provide Iraq’s security vital for the country’s development, said Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili as meeting prime minister of Iraq’s Kurdish regional government Nechirvan Barzani.

TEHRAN, (ISNA)-Iran’s president senior adviser Samare Hashemi said the Zionist regime letter of objection to Turkish government over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visit to Istanbul is “of no value.”

TBILISI (Reuters) – Georgia will withdraw 1,000 soldiers from Iraq to help fight off Russian forces in Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia, the head of Georgia’s Security Council, Kakha Lomaia, said on Friday.

TBILISI (Reuters) – Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili will declare martial law in a few hours time, the secretary of Georgia’s Security Council said early on Saturday.

KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) – The failure of Iraqi politicians to resolve competing ethnic claims for the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk is storing up explosive problems for the country’s future.