Reuters: Japan on Tuesday placed Iran’s third-largest bank on a blacklist for allegedly having helped Tehran develop its nuclear programme, following up on similar moves by the United States and the European Union announced in January.

AP: Iran is confident that neighboring Azerbaijan would not allow attacking forces to pass through its territory, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday, according to the official IRNA news agency.

UPI: Western supporters of Israel are losing credibility in the eyes of the international community, the Iranian president said.

UPI: Iran is ready to discuss building an oil refinery along the Bulgarian coast of the Black Sea if Bulgaria is ready for the development, an official said.

AFP: Iran stands fully behind Syria and blames the United States and Arab nations for the bloody unrest shaking its ally, media on Monday quoted a deputy foreign minister as saying.

Bloomberg: Azerbaijan, which shares a 618- kilometer (384-mile) border with Iran, vowed to prevent the use of its territory to carry out attacks against its southern neighbor, President Ilham Aliyev’s aide said.

AFP: Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger said in an interview Sunday that the United States should assume that Iran is actively preparing to build nuclear weapons.

Reuters: Japan will continue to import as much Iranian crude oil as it needs, the Japanese ambassador to Tehran was quoted by Iranian media on Sunday as saying.

Reuters: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has launched a fresh tirade against the West, saying the Islamic Republic does not fear military action, Iranian media reported on Sunday.