Ayatollah enters Iran nuclear row

IRAN'S supreme leader yesterday publicly backed the defiant stand of country's hardline president on Tehran's nuclear programme as the Islamic Republic again insisted the West would come off worst in any confrontation.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Tehran's ultimate arbiter of power, told Iranian officials not to yield to Western pressure as he prepared Iranians for a possibly "painful" showdown with the United States. If Iran gave ground on the nuclear issue the US would find another excuse to advance its real aim of regime change in Tehran, he said on national television.

( Full story here )