Arvandan Oil and Gas Company Managing Director Salbali Karami said the second phase of development plan of Darkhoein oilfield would become operational in the “Government Week” in 2008 – from Aug. 30 to Sept. 5.

Morvarid Petrochemical Complex Managing Director Safar-Ali Babaii said Olefin 5 would come on stream in September 2008.

Italy opposes any military action against Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program because such an attack could destabilize the entire Middle East, Italian Premier Romano Prodi said Tuesday.

Iran reopened two consulates on Tuesday in the cities of Erbil and Sulaimaniyah in Iraq’s northern Kurdish region, which were closed after US troops raided the one in Erbil and abducted five Iranians in January.

The jailed chief of Turkey’s Kurdish rebels remains a powerful symbol for fighters who revere him with a personality cult. But the guerrilla lieutenants who plot tactics from bases in northern Iraq are coming under increasing scrutiny as Turkey presses Iraq and the United States for their arrest.

The number of Iraqis returning to their country after fleeing abroad is growing, with more than 46,000 people coming home last month, an Iraqi government spokesman said Wednesday.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and U.S. President George W. Bush agreed Monday to establish an “operational coordination” system that will provide better communication to combat the

The Commission for declassification of the secret services archives of Bulgaria has so far found 620 former communist secret service agents, member of the commission Ekaterina Boncheva said. The only institution where there were no members connected to

Campaigning for tougher sanctions on Tehran, Israel went on the offensive Tuesday against the UN nuclear watchdog, accusing its chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, of playing into Iran’s hands over its atomic program. The campaign comes with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) poised to publish a new report on

Good news: Turkey is on its best way to sufficiently fulfill the Copenhagen political criteria which concern the insurance of democratic standards, the compliance of the rule of law, and the implementation of fundamental rights.