BAGHDAD, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Iran, accused by the United States of helping stoke violence in Iraq, appears to be holding to its pledge to halt the flow of weapons and people across the border, the Iraqi government spokesman said on Saturday.

Iran had also played a role in persuading radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to call a halt to the activities of his Mahdi Army militia, spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told reporters in Baghdad.

MANAMA, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed the prospect of war over his country's nuclear drive during a visit on Saturday to key US ally Bahrain, whose ties with Tehran have often been strained.

'We don't expect a new war in the region... and don't wish war to break out... But we have made all the preparations to face this eventuality (although) we don't expect (military conflict),' he told reporters.

It was only the second visit to the tiny Gulf island state by an Iranian president since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

TEHRAN, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Iran's deputy nuclear negotiator said on Saturday he will meet EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana's top aide next week to try to pave the way for a meeting between their bosses.

Javad Vaidi said he and Robert Cooper would hold talks in Vienna on Wednesday on the sidelines of an International Atomic Energy Agency board meeting to arrange the encounter between Solana and Saeed Jalili, Iran's new nuclear pointman, the ISNA news agency reported.

RIYADH, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived Saturday in the Saudi capital to join fellow leaders from OPEC oil-exporting countries for a rare summit.

The two-day gathering of heads of state from the 12-member Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries is only the third in the cartel's 47-year history.

A smiling Ahmadinejad, who waved to television cameras as he walked from his plane, was greeted by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah.

RIYADH, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has arrived in the Saudi capital for a summit with fellow leaders from OPEC oil-exporting countries.

The two-day summit of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries is only the third in the organisation's 47-year history, bringing together 12 heads of state from the oil-rich nations.

A smiling Ahmadinejad, who waved to television cameras as he walked from his plane, was greeted by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah.

TEHRAN, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sent a letter to his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy following recent French criticism of Tehran's nuclear drive, a senior official said on Saturday.

'President Ahmadinejad's letter to President Nicolas Sarkozy concerns the current relations between Iran and France and their prospect,' the state IRNA news agency quoted Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi as saying.

MANAMA, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday began a brief visit to key US ally Bahrain, with which ties have often been strained, to sign several cooperation agreements.

Ahmadinejad, who was to leave later in the day for Saudi Arabia to attend a rare summit of the OPEC oil cartel, immediately went into talks with Bahrain's King Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa, a senior official told AFP.

TEHRAN, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - The UN nuclear monitor IAEA will send a delegation to Iran in two weeks to discuss nuclear contamination at an Iranian university, Iran's top nuclear official told the ISNA news agency on Saturday.

'IAEA officials will come to Iran to discuss contamination in one of Tehran's universities in two weeks,' the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation Gholam Reza Aghazadeh said.

TEHRAN, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Iran's president Mahmoud Ahamdinejad said on Saturday that crude prices, hovering close to 100 dollars a barrel, are still lower than the actual value, the state news agency IRNA reported.

'The pressure on the fossil energy (oil) market is not artificial and the price of this commodity is lower than its actual price,' Ahmadinejad said before leaving Tehran for an OPEC summit in Saudi Arabia.

Ahmadinejad also said that pricing oil in US dollars was affecting the producing countries.

CARACAS, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez pursued an ambitious diplomatic mission Saturday aimed at persuading OPEC nations to maintain oil prices at their current level, defending Iran's nuclear program, and stepping up efforts to get Colombian rebels to release hostages.

Chavez wants the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries summit in Saudi Arabia this week to take on a stronger 'political and geopolitical' role and return to its stance of the 1970s when it tightened the screws on consumer nations.

WASHINGTON, Nov 16, 2007 (AFP) - Even as President George W. Bush pressed Iran on its nuclear program Friday, US officials said the US military was puzzling over the meaning of a sharp drop in Iranian-related attacks in Iraq.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other senior defense officials have said it is too soon to judge the significance of the three-month decline in the use of explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) and other Iranian made weapons.

WASHINGTON, Sept 30, 2007 (AFP) - Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari on Sunday urged Iran not to fan flames of confrontation with the West over its nuclear program, saying the conflict was leading to rising global tensions.

'From where we are, there is a rising tension between the (United Nations) Security Council and Iran over the nuclear fire,' he told CNN.

'We, as Iraqis, are worried about this rising tension. And we are doing our best to decrease that because that will impact our security situation more positively,' he added.

WASHINGTON, Sept 30, 2007 (AFP) - The US administration has shifted strategy and is drawing up plans for possible air strikes against Iran's Revolutionary Guard instead of the country's nuclear sites, the New Yorker magazine reported on Sunday.

President George W. Bush has requested the Joint Chiefs of Staff revise plans for a possible attack on Iran, with the focus on 'surgical' raids against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps which Washington accuses of targeting US forces in Iraq, the magazine wrote.

BAGHDAD, Sept 30, 2007 (AFP) - The US military in Iraq said Sunday it had seized sophisticated Iranian-made surface-to-air missiles that were being used by insurgents in the war-torn country.

Several Misagh-1s have been found in different locations, the military said, although it stopped short of saying the use of the weapons represented an escalation of Iranian activity in Iraq.

'We've said that we've found these things, we've seen them employed. That's significant in it's own right,' US military spokesman Rear Admiral Mark Fox told reporters in Baghdad.

TEHRAN, Sept 30, 2007 (AFP) - A prominent cleric in Iran's southwestern oil province of Khuzestan has survived an assassination attempt, the student ISNA news agency reported on Sunday.

Sheikh Samir Dor-Kavandi, the Friday prayers leader for a district of the provincial capital Ahvaz, was shot by an unknown assailant on Saturday evening.

'Sheikh Samir Dor-Kavandi was hit by a bullet fired by a man on a motorcycle,' the news agency quoted the city's governor Abdolaziz Fadami as saying.

TEHRAN, Sept 30, 2007 (AFP) - Iran said on Sunday it would press on with its intensified cooperation with the UN nuclear agency to prevent the imposition of further Security Council sanctions over its contested nuclear programme.

'To prevent new sanctions, we will continue our cooperation with the agency,' said foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini, according to the state IRNA news agency.

LA PAZ, Sept 29, 2007 (AFP) - Iran's top Latin America diplomat denied that his country was forming an anti-US bloc with Venezuela and Bolivia, two countries that support Tehran's disputed nuclear program.

'Neither Bolivia nor Iran or Venezuela are forming blocs against anyone,' Safar Ali Eslamian, director of the Iranian foreign ministry's Latin America Department, was quoted as saying Saturday in La Razon newspaper.

'We have decided to have a different way of life, we are not against them,' he said, referring to the United States.

TEHRAN, Sept 29, 2007 (AFP) - Iranian MPs on Saturday branded the US Army and the Central Intelligence Agency as terrorist, hitting back at US lawmakers' designation of the elite Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization.

'The aggressing US Army and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sponsor terrorism and are terrorists themselves,' said 215 MPs out of 290 in the conservative-dominated parliament in a statement carried by the ISNA news agency.

TEHRAN, Sept 29, 2007 (AFP) - Thirteen people were killed when a truck carrying diesel fuel collided with a passenger bus in southeastern Iran, state television reported on Saturday.

Another 15 people were injured in the accident on a road between Chabahar and Iranshahr in Sistan-Baluchestan province late on Friday.

Iran's roads are among the most dangerous in the world. At least 100,000 people in the country of 70 million have died in road accidents over the past five years.

TEHRAN, Sept 29, 2007 (AFP) - Iran on Saturday condemned a US Senate plan to split Iraq along ethnic and religious lines, saying it amounted to 'blatant interference' in its western neighbour's affairs.

'The US Senate's act is blatant interference in Iraqi internal affairs and violates this country's national unity and territorial integrity,' foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hoseini said in a statement.

'The recent move is among mistakes that Americans will have to correct,' the spokesman said.

TEHRAN, Sept 29, 2007 (AFP) - Iran will sign a multi-billion dollar gas pipeline deal with Pakistan in the absence of India by the end of October, a top Iranian oil official said on Saturday.

'The peace pipeline contract ... will be ready to sign by the end of October,' Hojatollah Ghanimi-Fard, Iran's representative to the talks, told the oil ministry's news service Shana.

TEHRAN, Sept 29, 2007 (AFP) - Iran on Saturday called on world powers to support Tehran's agreement with the UN nuclear watchdog to resolve questions over its nuclear progamme.

'Supporting the agreement between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran must continue by all sides so that this mission is finalised,' Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told the state IRNA news agency.

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 28, 2007 (AFP) - France will propose to discuss sanctions against Iran outside the UN framework at a meeting with its European Union partners next month, its foreign minister said here Friday.

'We have an appointment on October 15 with the European union,' Bernard Kouchner said on the margins of the UN General Assembly session. 'We will talk about sanctions. Already we are sending a letter to our counterparts.'

NEW YORK, Sept 28, 2007 (AFP) - Major world powers working to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions said Friday they would wait for two key reports in November before deciding on whether to push for a third round of UN sanctions on Tehran.

Their comments followed talks in New York between the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Germany and the European Union to discuss measures against the Islamic republic over its refusal to stop enriching uranium.

NEW YORK, Sept 28, 2007 (AFP) - Major powers are to wait for two reports on Tehran's uranium enrichment program before deciding on whether to push for a third round of UN sanctions on Iran, according to a joint statement on Friday.

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany and the European Union agreed to wait until November pending reports by UN atomic agency head Mohamed ElBaradei and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

TEHERAN, Sept 28, 2007 (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has warned that France's hardening stance regarding Teheran's nuclear drive could hit economic relations between the two countries, state radio reported Friday.

'We are not very much in favour of continuing economic ties at this level with them (France),' Ahmadinejad said during a visit to Latin America.

He said Tehran's political relationship with France did not correpond with the economic one.

NEW YORK, Sept 28, 2007 (AFP) - Six major powers trying to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions launched talks here Friday in search of an elusive compromise on new sanctions against the Islamic republic over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment.

Shortly before the closed-door meeting got under way, German Foreign Minister Franck-Walter Steinmeier told reporters: 'this meeting is not going to be simple.'

TEHRAN, Sept 28, 2007 (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who recently addressed an American university in a somewhat stormy session, says that if US President George W. Bush would like to make a speech at an Iranian university he would authorise it.

In a statement to state television during his visit to Latin America, the Iranian leader said: 'If their president (Bush) wishes to come, we authorise him to make a speech' at an Iranian university.

TEHRAN, Sept 28, 2007 (AFP) - Iran denied on Friday claims by the country's main opposition group that it is building a new bomb-proof underground site for developing nuclear weapons, linked by tunnel to an existing complex at Natanz.

Ali Larijani, 'the chief for international relations of the Supreme National Security Council, denies the existence of a secret nuclear site in Iran,' according to a statement by Larijani deputy Javad Vaidi read on national television

NEW YORK, Sept 28, 2007 (AFP) - Six major powers trying to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions meet here Friday to weigh tougher sanctions against the Islamic republic, as Russia urges patience to allow the UN nuclear watchdog to pass judgment on Tehran's cooperation.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is to huddle with her counterparts from Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany to discuss a third round of sanctions against Tehran for its refusal to halt uranium enrichment.

CARACAS, Sept 27, 2007 (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Caracas Thursday for talks with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, following a brief trip to Bolivia, another anti-US ally in South America.

Chavez and fellow leftist President Evo Morales, of Bolivia, both support Iran's controversial nuclear program and, like Ahmadinejad, are virulent critics of the US administration.

The two South American nations have reached a number of trade and aid agreements with Iran, particularly in the energy sector.

LA PAZ, Sept 27, 2007 (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad headed to Caracas Thursday for talks with firebrand Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez in a mini-tour of Iran's anti-US allies that also took him to Bolivia.

He boarded a plane for Venezuela after talks in La Paz with Bolivian President Evo Morales during a five-hour visit to the South American country.

Chavez and fellow leftist Morales both support Iran's controversial nuclear program and, like Ahmadinejad, are virulent critics of the US administration.

TEHRAN, Sept 27, 2007 (AFP) - French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has apologized to his Iranian counterpart over a media 'misportrayal' of his recent warning about bracing for war with Iran over its nuclear programme, Iran's state news agency IRNA reported Thursday.

In Paris, a French foreign ministry official said Kouchner and Iran's Manouchehr Mottaki had held a 'very substantial encounter' Tuesday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting.

LA PAZ, Sept 27, 2007 (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived here Thursday for an official visit to Bolivia and a planned stop in Venezuela, shoring up his support in the backyard of his bitter rival the United States.

The Iranian leader arrived just two days after he insisted on his country's right to develop nuclear energy -- a position staunchly opposed by Washington and much of the West -- during a speech at the United Nations.

LA PAZ, Sept 27, 2007 (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived here Thursday for meetings with Bolivia's leftist president Evo Morales, ahead of a stop in Venezuela.

The meeting between Ahmadinejad and Morales takes place just months after Bolivia and Iran re-established diplomatic ties, and finds the two firebrand leaders united in their tense relations with Washington.

Morales, along with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, is among few world leaders who support Iran's nuclear program.

TEHRAN, Sept 27, 2007 (AFP) - French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has apologised to his Iranian counterpart over a media 'misportrayal' of his recent warning about bracing for war with Iran over its nuclear programme, Iran's state news agency reported Thursday.

In Paris, a French foreign ministry official said Kouchner and Iran's Manouchehr Mottaki had held a 'very substantial encounter' Tuesday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting.

PARIS, Sept 27, 2007 (AFP) - Iran is building a new bomb-proof underground site for developing nuclear weapons, linked by tunnel to an existing complex at Natanz, the main Iranian opposition group said Thursday.

'Information we have from inside the regime indicates that the site is destined for military nuclear activity, mainly for the further enrichment of uranium,' Mehdi Abrichamtchi, of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), told a news conference.

PARIS, Sept 27, 2007 (AFP) - France does not believe claims by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that his country's nuclear activities are peaceful, President Nicolas Sarkozy's office said Thursday.

'Ahmadinejad says that the programme is peaceful. Ultimately, we do not believe him. Everyone knows that the programme has military goals,' spokesman David Martinon told a press conference.