Tel Aviv - The European Union "underestimates the Iranian threat," Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said in remarks quoted Sunday. In an interview with the Ha'aretz daily as he wrapped up a visit to Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Topolanek, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, added however that he believed that "at this very moment, there is no imminent threat of a war between Israel and Iran."

Israel regards Iran as its biggest existential threat, given Tehran's nuclear programme, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated statements that the Jewish state should be wiped off the map.

Tehran - Iranian Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi has not yet been allowed to visit Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi in the Evin jail in northern Tehran, Saberi's lawyer said Saturday. "As far as I am informed, Ebadi and her colleagues have already followed up the case but not yet succeeded to visit her in jail for getting her signature for the mandate," Abdolsamad Khoramshahi told the labour news agency ILNA.

Saberi was sentenced to an eight-year jail term last week on charges of spying for the US government.

Tehran - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday blamed the United States and

Tehran  - A senior Iranian clergy member on Friday deplored recent remarks by US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on preparing renewed tough sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programmes.

"What kind of talk is that and where is the difference to the policy adopted against Iran during the (former US president George W) Bush era?" ex-president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani said at the Friday prayer ceremony.

Tehran - The head of the Tehran court said Friday that three judges were likely to preside over the appeal court of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, who was sentenced to an eight-year jail term last week on charges of spying for the US government.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and judiciary head Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi called for a fair appeal court for Saberi and said she should be provided with all possible legal facilities.

Tehran - Iran and the European Union have coordinated in a telephone call the next round of nuclear talks, the ISNA news agency reported Thursday.

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeid Jalili and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana had a telephone conversation following Iran's announcement it was ready to resume nuclear talks with world powers on Wednesday.

Solana is representing the so-called 5+1 group which includes the five permanent UN Security Council member states - the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France - plus Germany.