Munich  - Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is heading for Iran and is scheduled to meet with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a German newpaper was set to report Friday.

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung said Schroeder's Berlin office had confirmed he was on the trip, which would last four days.

During the private visit, he would also meet with Ali Larijani, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, and a former president, Hashemi Rafsanjani, who now chairs the Experts Assembly, the country's highest clerical body.

Schroeder did not visit Iran during his 1998-2005 chancellorship.

The newspaper said he had been invited there by an Iranian-born neurosurgeon, Majid Samii, a longtime acquaintance who lives in Schroeder's hometown, Hanover.

The foundation stone of a neurology institute named in Samii's honour was to be laid Friday in Rasht, the town where Samii was born in 1937, the newspaper said. Samii founded the International Science Institute in Hanover. (dpa)