MANAMA (AFP) - Bahrain said on Saturday it had received assurances from Iran that it respected its sovereignty and territorial integrity, easing tension caused by a controversial Iranian press article.

The Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki arrived in Bahrain late Friday night to smooth over the furor surrounding claims by the managing director of Iran's Kayhan newspaper that the Shiite-majority Persian Gulf archipelago belongs to the Islamic republic. Hossein Shariatmadari wrote that "public demand in Bahrain is the reunification of this province with its motherland, the Islamic Iran." Mottaki on Saturday held talks with his Bahraini counterpart, Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa, before both gave a news conference. "We obtained pleasing official assurances from the political leadership in Iran...which extinguished our worries and reasserted the depth of relations between our countries," Sheikh Khalid told reporters