Syria’s information minister, Omran al-Zoubi, accused France along with Turkey and Qatar of supporting “terrorism” in Syria by recognizing the new opposition Syrian National Coalition , including the acceptance of an official envoy in Paris, to remarks he made in an interview on al-Alam News Channel.

” This adoption proves again the involvement of the ruling institution in France, regardless of the president, along with Turkey and Qatar in supporting terrorism in Syria.”

Al-Zoubi stressed that the Syria opposition abroad has lost its free and independent will regarding accepting dialogue or not.

Meanwhile, Iran, hosted a summit in Tehran on Sunday to seek an end to the conflict in Syria.

Iranian officials said about 200 Syrian “political characters” had participated but there was no indication that the Syrian National Coalition, a new umbrella opposition group led by Sunni Muslim cleric Mouaz Alkhatib, had attended, according to Reuters.

Iran has backed the government of Syria, throughout the conflict, reportedly providing arms and training for government forces. In turn, Iran  has accused Western and Arab nations of stirring violence in Syria by arming opposition groups.

The Iranian Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Salehi said in a speech in Tehran on Sunday, that “some countries envisage arming the opposition with heavy and semi-heavy weaponry.”

Salehi said such arms deliveries would set a “dangerous precedent” and constitute “a clear interference in the affairs of an independent country,” according to AFP.

His speech comes as EU foreign ministers are set to meet on Monday to discuss the lifting of the arms embargo to Syria.

France has publicly said it favours sending “defensive” weapons to the Syrian opposition, after recognising the new Syrian National coalition and deciding to host an ambassador in Paris.

There were reports Sunday of a minor exchange of fire across the border with Israel in the Golan Heights with no casualties, the third such incident reported this month, according to the israeli army.

Soon after arriving in Tehran, the UN chief attended a working lunch at the Parliament Building with the Speaker, Ali Larijani, and other officials, and later had meetings with President Ahmadinejad, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Saeed Jalili.

“In all these meetings, the Secretary-General conveyed the clear concerns and expectations of the international community on the issues for which cooperation and progress are urgent for both regional stability and the welfare of the Iranian people,” the spokesperson told a news briefing at UN Headquarters in New York.

“These include Iran’s nuclear programme, terrorism, human rights and the crisis in Syria. We expect to be able more details on these talks later,” he added.

The UN chief is in Iran to attend the 16th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Taking place in the capital, Tehran, and under the chairmanship of Iran, the NAM Summit began on Sunday and ends on Friday, and is expected to draw representatives from its 120 members, as well as from various associated observer countries. The UN chief will address the Summit on Thursday.

“This is very important opportunity for Iran to play a very important role as moderate and constructive leader of the international community in addressing all the challenges,” Mr. Ban said in a media encounter upon arrival at Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport, earlier on Wednesday, adding that Iran has a “very important” role to play in the region, particularly when it comes to the situation in Syria.

A UN spokesperson who addressed the same news briefing by telephone from Tehran said that while discussing the nuclear question in his meeting with President Ahmadinejad, the Secretary-General said he has been following closely Iran’s talks with the P5+1 grouping, made up of the five Security Council permanent members – China, France, Russia, United Kingdom and United States – along with Germany.

The spokesperson in Tehran stated that the UN chief regretted that little tangible progress has been achieved so far during the talks, and that the talks needed to be serious and substantive.

“He said that Iran needed to take concrete steps to address the concern of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and prove to the world that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes,’ the spokesperson noted. “He said that there is no alternative to peaceful, diplomatic and negotiated settlement which should be reached step by step and based on reciprocity.”

The Secretary-General made the same point on the nuclear question in his meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran’s nuclear activities have been of international concern since the discovery, in 2003, that Iran had concealed its nuclear activities for 18 years, in breach of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran has repeatedly stated that its nuclear programme is for the peaceful purpose of providing energy, but many countries contend it is seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

Ban has previously expressed the hope that the parties can quickly achieve a negotiated solution that restores international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme. In 2011, the Security Council imposed a fourth round of sanctions against Iran, citing the proliferation risks of its nuclear programme and its continued failure to cooperate with the IAEA.

On Syria, in his separate meetings with the President and the Supreme Leader, Ban urged them both to use Iran’s influence to impress upon the Syrian leadership the urgent need for the violence to stop and to create the conditions for a credible dialogue and a genuine political process that meets the will of the Syrian people, the spokesperson in Tehran said.

He added that the Secretary-General reiterated his opposition to the further militarization of the conflict and he called on all States to stop supplying arms to all sides in Syria.

Syria has been wracked by violence, with more than 17,000 people, mostly civilians, killed since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began some 17 months ago. Over the past month, there have been reports of an escalation in violence in many towns and villages, as well as the country’s two biggest cities, Damascus and Aleppo. In addition, the conflict has displaced many people, both inside the country and into neighbouring countries.

On human rights, in his meeting with the President, Secretary-General Ban said that the human rights situation in Iran remains a source of concern, and that fundamental, civil and political rights should be respected.

In that meeting as well as his meeting with the Supreme Leader, the UN chief also mentioned that he strongly objected to recent remarks from Iranian officials denying the Holocaust and Israel’s right to exist, the spokesperson in Tehran noted, adding that Mr. Ban said that such offensive and inflammatory statements were unacceptable and should be condemned by all.

The Secretary-General had similar exchanges with the Speaker of Parliament and with the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, with the talks with the latter focussed primarily on the nuclear issue.

Taking place in the capital, Tehran, and under the chairmanship of Iran, the NAM Summit will be held on 26-31 August, and is expected to draw representatives from its 120 members, as well as from various associated observer countries.

Over recent days, there have been media reports of calls, from Israel and the US, for Ban to boycott the meeting.

Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Ban to cancel his plans to take part in the Tehran summit, according to Israeli media.

Washington made clear last week that it also wants the UN chief to boycott the event, and on Wednesday the US State Department reiterated its misgivings, according to Reuters. 

Mr. Ban’s spokesperson said that the UN chief takes “seriously” his responsibility and that of the United Nations to pursue diplomatic engagement with all of the world body’s Member States, in the interest of peacefully addressing vital matters of peace and security.

“With respect to the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Secretary-General will use the opportunity to convey the clear concerns and expectations of the international community on the issues for which cooperation and progress are urgent for both regional stability and the welfare of the Iranian people,” the spokesperson said.

“These include Iran’s nuclear programme, terrorism, human rights and the crisis in Syria.”

Over the past weekend, Mr. Ban’s spokesperson said the Secretary-General was “dismayed” by recent remarks threatening Israel’s existence – attributed to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – and condemned the comments, which he described as “offensive and inflammatory.”

Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful, but Western powers and their allies fear it is aimed at developing atomic weapons. Iran has been hit with four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for refusing to halt its nuclear enrichment program.

Gholamreza Masoumi, the country’s head of emergency services said that the injured were being taken to Tabriz, the biggest city in the region, and Ardebil, a neighouring province.

The quakes measured 6.2 and 6.0 on themagnitude scale, according to Tehran University’s Seismological Centre while the US Geological Survey, ranked them as stronger than that, at 6.4 and 6.3, respectively.

Tehran University’s Seismological Centre said the first earthquake hit at 4:53pm local time (12:23 GMT), with an epicentre just 60km from Tabriz, close to the town of Ahar, and a depth of 10km. The second – a big aftershock – hit 11 minutes later from nearly the same spot. A series of at least 10 smaller aftershocks rating 4.7 or below rapidly followed, according to Reuters. 

The disaster zone was located around 90 kilometres from the borders with Armenia and Azerbaijan, and around 190 kilometres from the border with Turkey, state TV said.

Authorities feared the death toll could rise as rescuers were still trying to reach people trapped under rubble.

According to local officials, 4 villages have been destroyed completely, while 60 others have sustained damage from 50 to 80 percent only in Ahar region, Fars news agency said.

According to the report of Presidential Office website, the cabinet members in the message expressed their deep sorrow over the incident and expressed sympathy with victims’ families.

The government called on all natural disaster headquarters and responsible bodies to mobilize all their possibilities and releif equipment and provide quake-stricken areas with all kinds of necessary assistance.

Israel’s Defence Minister told Israeli radio, “The immediate executors are people form Hezbollah, who of course have constant Iranian sponsorship.”

The tourists had arrived from Israel on a charter flight and were waiting in a bus in the car park at Burgas Airport, on the Black Sea, at the time the blast took place.

Just hours after the attack Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran was to blame for the attack and that “Israel will react powerfully against Iranian terror.”

A bombing on a bus with Israeli tourists in Bulgaria was likely carried out by a male suicide attacker, Bugaria’s interior minister said Thursday.

Earlier Thursday, it was reported that the death toll from the attack rose to six Israelis, after one of the wounded succumbed to his wounds in the hospital, the bus driver and the suicide bomber, according to Haaretz. 

Video surveillance in front of the airport and the investigation showed the bomber could not be distinguished among arriving Israeli tourists. “He looked like everybody else – a normal person with Bermuda shorts and a backpack,” Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said, according to Reuters.

 About 34 wounded Israeli tourists will be flown back to Israel in the next hours, Haaretz reported.

The blast came on the 18th anniversary of a 1994 bomb attack on the headquarters of Argentina’s main Jewish organization by a Hezbollah suicide bomber, which killed 85 people, Reuters writes.

Israel and Western powers have accused Iran for developing a nuclear weapons and have not rules out military action against the Islamic Republic, while Tehran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

Hezbollah is a powerful political party and militant group  in Lebanon backed by Iran and Syria. In 2006 it fought a war with Israel in 2006.

“I think Iran can play a positive role,” the Joint Special Envoy told reporters in the Iranian capital, Tehran, adding, “I believe, as you heard me say on many occasions, that Iran has a role to play. And my presence here explains that I believe in that.”

Annan was addressing the media alongside Iran’s Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Salehi. The envoy had arrived in Iran on Monday to seek the country’s support and cooperation in his efforts to resolve the conflict in Syria.

The UN estimates that more than 10,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Syria and tens of thousands displaced since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began 16 months ago.

In his remarks to the media, the Joint Special Envoy noted that since assuming his functions, he had received encouragement and cooperation from Minister Salehi and the Government of Iran

“And I think the Minister has made it clear that if we do not make a real effort to resolve this issue peacefully, and it were to get out of hand and spread to the region, [it could] lead to consequences that none of us can imagine. So, let’s work together to bring peace and stability to Syria,” Annan said.

Preceding his arrival in Tehran, the Joint Special Envoy had been in Damascus, where he met with President al-Assad, in talks which he earlier described as “very candid and constructive.” He had also said they had agreed on an approach to ending the violence in the Middle Eastern country, and that he would share that approach with the armed opposition.

In response to a question in Tehran on that approach, Annan said that the details had yet to be finalized as the armed opposition in Syria had to be consulted. “I cannot get into specific details. But let me say that it relates to the efforts to end the violence. And he [President al-Assad] made a suggestion of building an approach from the ground up in some of the districts where we have extreme violence – to try and contain the violence in those districts and, step by step, build up and end the violence across the country,” he said. “The details, of course, are to be worked out… but it really deals with ending the violence,” he added.

Later on Tuesday, Joint Special Envoy Annan arrived in Baghdad, Iraq, for talks with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on the Syrian crisis and its impact on the region.

A spokesperson for Mr. Annan said that the meeting with Prime Minister Maliki was “very constructive,” and the Iraqi leader expressed concern for the potential impacts the Syrian crisis could have on neighbouring countries, particularly Iraq, should it not be contained.

The spokesperson added that the Prime Minister expressed his full support for the six-point plan put forward earlier this year by Annan to end the violence in Syria. The plan calls for an end to violence, access for humanitarian agencies to provide relief to those in need, the release of detainees, the start of inclusive political dialogue, and unrestricted access to the country for the international media.

In Moscow, the six powers – United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany – are again expected to push Tehran to address their most pressing concern, its enrichment of uranium to 20 percent fissile purity. The failure of talks could be devastating, amid fears that Israel could bomb Iran if no diplomatic solution is found, intensifying regional tensions and pushing oil prices higher Al Jazeera reports.

The six powers, led by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, hope at least to win assurances that Tehran is willing to discuss solid solutions, opening the way to further meetings.

Iran has refuted such accusations and insists it nuclear programme is only for peaceful purposes.

Ahead of the Moscow talks, each side has accused the other of hampering diplomacy.

The Islamic Republic’s chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili, told a Russian television station Iran’s right to enrich uranium ought to be “recognised and respected”.  Iran is also seeking to put an end to tightening economic sanctions impose by EU and US.

At the last talks, in Baghdad last month, the six nations asked Tehran in return to stop producing higher-grade uranium, ship any stockpile out of the country and close down the underground Fordow facility where such work is done.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) failed to persuade Iran, in talks this month, to let it inspect a military site, Parchin, where new satellite imagery of the Parchin base near Tehran showed that “extensive activities” where there had been “virtually” none for years, Reuters reported. This “could hamper the agency’s ability to undertake effective verification” of the site, the IAEA warned.

“Iran will build a 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plant in Bushehr next year,” Fereydoon Abbasi Davani said, AFP reported.

The announcement comes in the wake of nuclear talks in Baghdad on May 23-24 between six world powers and Iran known as P5+1 (Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany).

 Those talks collapsed but have agreed to meet again in Moscow on June 18-19.

The existing Bushehr nuclear plant was started by German engineers in the 1970s before Iran’s Islamic Revolution and was completed by Russia, which supplies fuel for it and helps keep the facility running, according to Reuters.

Tehran insists that it has no reason to suspend its enrichment of uranium to 20 percent, one of the key demands of world powers on Wednesday and Thursday in Baghdad, as it stated that it produces only as much of the 20 percent fuel as it needs.

Meanwhile, the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog has failed to convince Iran of the need to inspect a military base suspected of housing nuclear weapons’ experiments, Iranian media quoted the head of country’s atomic agency as saying on Saturday.

“The reasons and document have still not been presented by the agency to convince us to give permission for this visit,” the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani said. Tehran denies accusations that it is developing atom bombs, and insists it’s for peaceful means.

The decision made by the Citizenship and immigration Canada department, came via a link on its official website that it had closed its visa section as part of an effort to operate “more effectively and efficiently.”

It said that all visa serivces would be transferred to the Canadian embassy in Ankara, in addition to being responsible for applications from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Turkmenistan.

The move has outraged many Iranians who had been planning to apply for tourist or immigration visas to Canada, with several expressing their dissatisfaction on Twitter and other social media, according to AFP.

The Iranian community in Canada has started an online  petition urging Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, Mr. Jason Kenny to consider the situation and voiced their concerns regarding this decision that  as they stated “will impact the lives of almost every permanent resident or Canadian citizen with ties to Iran.”

Canada has in recent years been seen by many  Iranians as a desirable destination to migrate especially for educational purposes, though restrictions on that matter have recently been applied.

There are approximately 120,000 people of Iranian origin or descent living in Canada according to the  2006 census.

The closure of the Canadian visa office further narrows options for Iranians seeking to travel west, after Britain closed its Tehran embassy in November after Iranian students stormed it. The United States also has no embassy since 1980 after Iranian students attacked it and took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki  arrived  in the Iranian capital Tehran for two days of talks ahead of a meeting next month in Baghdad on Iran’s controversial nuclear program, Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported.

Al-Maliki arrived in Tehran on Sunday and was welcomed by Iran’s Energy Minister Majid Namjou.

Maliki is expected to meet during his visit with Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani, and chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.

The focus of talks was on bilateral, regional and international issues, and to “develop and strengthen bilateral ties,” IRNA reported.

Talks during Maliki’s visit are also expected to concentrate on economic and regional issues like the crisis in Syria.

It is the Iraqi premier’s first visit to Iran in nearly two years, and comes as Iraq is preparing to host Iranian officials and the P5+1 group of world powers(Britain, China, France, Russia and the US plus Germany) on May 23, for the next round of talks on Tehran’s controversial nuclear weapons program.

Iran and the P5+1 wrapped up the first round of talks in Istanbul, Turkey on April 14. Both sides characterized the talks as “constructive” and “positive.”

Meanwhile, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari has also met with an EU delegation to talk about issues relevant to the upcoming meeting between Iran and the P5+1, according to a statement by Iraq’s Foreign Minister.