New York police officers look at men dressed as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during a protest against the two leaders, outside the Warwick Hotel in New York City on Sept. 25. Ahmadinejad is staying at the hotel during his visit to New York for the United Nations General Assembly.

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Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi criticized Syria’s "oppressive regime" Thursday at an international conference in Iran – one of President Bashar Assad's few remaining allies - and called for outside intervention to end the civil war, NBC News reports.

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Between portraits of late Iranian revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, right, and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivers a speech on the eve of the 23rd death anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini, at his mausoleum just outside Tehran, Iran, June 2.

The Associated Press reports from ISLAMABAD — The Afghan president appealed for Pakistan's help Thursday in negotiating a peace deal with Taliban militants ahead of a summit that will also include the leader of Iran.

The meetings in Islamabad come at a time when momentum for peace talks with the Taliban seems to be growing, even as all parties to a stuttering process marked by intense mistrust say that success in ending the 10-year war in Afghanistan is far from certain. Read the full story.

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msnbc.com staff and news services report:

Iran won't retreat "one iota" from its nuclear program but the world is being misled by claims that it seeks atomic weapons, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday in his first reaction since a U.N. watchdog report that Tehran is on the brink of developing a warhead.

Ahmadinejad strongly chided the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, saying it is discrediting itself by siding with "absurd" U.S. accusations.

"This nation won't retreat one iota from the path it is going," Ahmadinejad told thousands of people in Shahr-e-Kord in central Iran. "Why are you ruining the prestige of the (U.N. nuclear) agency for absurd U.S. claims?" Read the full story.

Reuters reports:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's candidate to be Iran's new oil minister looked set to win a vote of confidence on Wednesday, easing a power struggle between the president and a hostile parliament.

Ahmadinejad proposed Rostami Qasemi only after it became clear that a close ally he had installed as caretaker minister in June, Mohammad Aliabadi, was considered by many lawmakers to lack experience. Perhaps more important, he was seen as too close to a president they accuse of trying to grab more power. Read the full story.

See more images of Iran on PhotoBlog.

Here's a story about Ahmadinejad's comments about recent Middle East upheavals.

EPA reports: A few hundred protesters marched to the Iranian Embassy to demonstrate against the hanging of Afghans in Iran. Afghan lawmakers have claimed that as many as 45 Afghans had been executed in Iran, but the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said that number is exaggerated.