Ali Asghar Soltanieh, the permanent representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the International Atomic Energy Agency, delivered a speech about Iran’s peaceful nuclear program before the IAEA Board of Governors in Vienna on Wednesday.

Sudan is the pivot of Iran-Africa relations, Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said in Khartoum on Wednesday during his four-day official visit to Sudan.

Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki has criticized discrimination against Muslim minorities in Western countries.

Iran’s agricultural jihad minister on Wednesday highlighted the need for Muslim nations to establish a joint agricultural market.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Mahshahr to inaugurate several major petrochemical and development projects in this southwestern city.

LJUBLJANA (Reuters) – Current European Union president Slovenia became the first former Yugoslav republic to recognize Kosovo’s independence from Serbia on Wednesday.

ARBIL, Iraq – Turkish warplanes bombed villages in remote northern Iraq on Tuesday, a week after a major eight-day offensive by Turkish forces against Kurdish PKK guerrillas in the region, border officials said on Wednesday.

BAKU – Azerbaijan accused neighbor Armenia on Wednesday of stoking unrest in the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, following shooting there in which Azerbaijan said 16 soldiers had been killed.

KIEV – Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko told his prime minister on Wednesday to resume talks with Moscow urgently after Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom halved supplies to Kiev in a row over payments .

MOSCOW – A patron of Russian fashion, socialite and supporter of the arts, Svetlana Medvedeva is shaking off her air of mystery as she prepares to become Russia’s first lady.