UAE calls for negotiations with Iran

It's reported that the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates has called for immediate negotiations with Iran over three disputed islands near the entrance to the Gulf.

The report was carried in a newspaper in Kuwait, where the Emirates' foreign minister Rashid Abdulla is preparing for the Gulf Cooperation Council summit on Saturday.

Last weekend the Iranian President, Mohammad Khatami said he was ready to travel to the UAE for talks on the issue.

Iran has held the islands -- Abu Musa and the Greater-and-Lesser-Tunbs -- since the Nineteen-Seventies and had consistently rejected UAE calls for arbitration.

The UAE President, Sheikh Zaid bin Sutan al-Nahayan, said on Sunday that Iran's refusal to recognise his country's rights over the islands was a hindrance to establishing confidence across the Gulf.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service