Foreign Affairs
Foreign Affairs
Sept 6 - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said he was concerned about "new dangers" in the Gulf, in an apparent allusion to Iran, whose nuclear ambitions concern numerous Arab countries.
In a speech to mark the Night of Destiny during the holy month of Ramadan, Mubarak said "our celebration comes as our Arab and Muslim world faces difficult times."
Sept 6 - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has questioned the accepted narrative of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, saying it was still not clear who was behind them.
'Something happened in New York and still nobody knows who the main perpetrators of that act were,' Mr Ahmadinejad told diplomats and newspaper editors while on a brief visit to Qatar.
Sep 5 - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran said on Sunday during a visit to the Gulf state of Qatar that any attack on the Islamic republic will result in the destruction of Israel.
"Any act against Iran will lead to the eradication of the Zionist entity," he told reporters.
Israel, the region's sole if undeclared nuclear power, has never ruled out a military strike to prevent Iran acquiring an atomic weapons capability, an ambition Tehran strongly denies./-
Sept 5 - The Vatican said Sunday it was in touch with Tehran "through diplomatic channels" over the controversy surrounding the Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery.
The statement reiterated the Catholic Church's opposition to the death penalty.
Sept 3 - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Friday that the people of the Middle East are "capable of removing the Zionist regime from the world scene" in an annual Palestinian solidarity day address in Tehran.
"If the leaders of the region do not have the guts, then the people of the region are capable of removing the Zionist regime from the world scene," the hardliner said as the crowd chanted "Death to America! Death to Israel!.
Sep 2 - Egypt said Thursday it has postponed a visit to Cairo by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki over comments criticising the role of some Arab leaders in facilitating Middle East peace talks.
The head of the Iranian interests section in Cairo was summoned to explain comments attributed to Mottaki in which he criticised "the participation of certain Arab leaders in the relaunch of direct peace talks between the Palestinians and Israelis in Washington," the foreign ministry said.
Sept 1 - Hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed on Wednesday the holding of direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, saying the negotiations will fail to resolve conflict in the Middle East.
"Tens of negotiations have been held in more than 30 years and tens of plans have been proposed, but they have all failed," Ahmadinejad told Iran's Arabic-language Al-Alam Television in an interview.
Sept 1 - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad welcomed the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq but called for punishment of the invaders, state television's Arabic-language Al-Alam channel said on Wednesday.
Ahmadinejad "welcomed the pullout of US forces from Iraq but said that those behind the invasion of this country should be put on trial and punished before an international court," the channel reported.
Aug 31 - Iran would be ready to engage in nuclear cooperation with its archfoe, the United States, Iran's atomic chief said Tuesday.
"If the Americans were ready to cooperate with Iran in establishing joint firms for building nuclear power plants, then we would be ready to negotiate," Ali-Akbar Salehi told the Khabar news network.
We would also be ready to establish a consortium for nuclear fuel production," he added.
Iran plans to build more nuclear power plants and at least 10 new uranium-enrichment sites in the coming years and has said that even the US could participate in these projects.
The US and Israel are the main critics of Iran's nuclear projects and accuse the country, which is the target of UN Security Council sanctions, of pursuing a secret nuclear weapons programme.
Washington was the key force behind the latest Security Council sanctions resolution, passed in June, after Tehran kept rejecting international demands for suspending its uranium-enrichment programmes. Highly enriched uranium can be used to make nuclear weapons./-
