Iran attempts image make-over at Non-Aligned Movement summit

To watch Iranian state television, you'd think the Arab country had been hosting the Olympics.

Rolling television coverage has seen reporters at Tehran Airport covering the landing of diplomats as if they were top athletes, and delegates being interviewed on the hospitality of Iranians and their first impressions of the capital.

But rather than a global sporting event with more than 200 competing nations, the airtime has been for this week's summit of the Non-Aligned Movement - a group of states not formally aligned with any power bloc.

It is Iran's biggest international event in three decades and authorities had one aim: to seize the rare presence of heads of state to claim a diplomatic victory over Western efforts to isolate Tehran for its controversial nuclear programme.

But there were some things the Iranian media didn't cover. When it came to the remarks made on Thursday by the Egyptian president, Mohammed Mursi, denouncing the Syrian regime, and the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon's, oblique criticism of their host's policies, the Iranian news agencies either censored the remarks completely or, worse, altered the translations.

For Iran's leaders, hosting the two-day summit represented an opportunity for an image makeover. In the face of the latest embargo against the import of Iranian oil, it was also a chance to find new customers.

They were able to depict Iran as a key player in international politics, but also portray it as the unfortunate victim of a Western-led campaign against its peaceful nuclear programme.