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US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and an Iranian politician are among people from 25 countries scheduled to take part in a conference on security which opened in Bahrain on Friday, organisers said. Gates, who will retain his post when president-elect Barack Obama takes over the White House, will attend the Manama Dialogue after visiting Afghanistan on Thursday. Iran will be represented by Kazem Jalali, chairman of the Iranian parliament's foreign affairs committee, according to John Chipman, director general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, under whose auspices the conference has been held each year since 2004.