TEHRAN (FNA)- While President George W. Bush’s trips to Iraq have been brief and surrounded by secrecy, a visit by Iran’s president on Sunday is being heralded with much fanfare, raising US concerns it will erode American influence in the region.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran and the United States are to agree on a new date for a fourth round of talks on Iraq by mid-March, the Iraqi foreign minister said on Friday.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iraqis are excitedly awaiting a Sunday visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the first by an Iranian head of state since the 1979 revolution.

TEHRAN (FNA)- France and Britain have again delayed a UN Security Council vote on a new round of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, Western diplomats said.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Criticisms of Iran’s uranium enrichment program seem hypocritical as Iran is doing exactly what several private companies are doing in the US.

TEHRAN (FNA) – Tehran’s provisional Friday Prayers leader Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati said Friday that the IAEA Chief Mohammad ElBaradei’s February 22 Iran report is a “solid evidence of Iranian nation’s righteousness and of the US failure.”

WASHINGTON: NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer took issue with the U.S. intelligence chief’s recent estimate that the Afghan government controlled only about 30 percent of the country.

LONDON – Prince Harry flew out of Afghanistan on Friday after news leaked that he had been fighting on the frontline for 10 weeks, defence sources said.

TEHRAN (FNA)- South Africa protested a “rush” by the five veto-wielding Security Council members to adopt new United Nations sanctions against Iran, saying it wants to wait for a report from the UN nuclear agency later this month.

TEHRAN (FNA)- India has not received any official information from Iran about China expressing interest in joining the $7 billion Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said here Thursday.