Al-Assad to head for Tehran next week

Iran is expected to have during the few coming days an active diplomatic movement, embodied in particular by the visit of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and another visit by the Turkish prime minister Abdullah Gul, in the context of the efforts made to a solution to the Iraqi crisis. No announcement was made in Damascus about al-Assad's visit to Tehran next week.

The spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry Hameed Rida Asefi said "we will discuss the Iraqi crisis with the visiting Syrian President and with the Turkish prime minister and the Kuwaiti foreign minister during the coming days."