<p> Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed on Wednesday he would not budge in response to protests over a disputed election that has sparked the biggest street demonstrations since the 1979 Islamic revolution.<br /><br />“I had insisted and will insist on implementing the law on the election issue... Neither the establishment nor the nation will yield to pressure at any cost,” Khamenei said.<br /><br />Now that riot police and religious militia have regained control of the streets, Iran’s hardline leadership seems to be taking a harsher line with its foreign and domestic critics.<br /><br />Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tehran was weighing whether to downgrade ties with Britain after tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats this week. He also announced he had “no plans” to attend a G8 meeting in Italy this week on Afghanistan.<br /><br />His remarks, a day after US President Barack Obama said he was “appaled and outraged” by the clampdown in Iran, provided more evidence of rising tension with the West.<br /><br />Western diplomats had seen the June 25-27 event as a rare chance for Group of Eight nations to discuss with regional powers such as Iran shared goals for Afghanistan and Pakistan.<br />The unexpected upheaval in Iran has thrown a spanner into Obama’s plans to engage the Islamic Republic in a substantive dialogue over its nuclear programme, which Tehran says is peaceful but which the West suspects is for bomb-making.<br /><br />Iran has accused the United States and Britain of fomenting post-election unrest and has paraded detained protesters on state television confessing that Western media had incited them.<br /><br />Wife demands action<br />Mousavi’s wife, Zahra Rahnavard, demanded the immediate release of people detained since the election and criticised the presence of armed forces in the streets, his website reported. <br /><br />“It is my duty to continue legal protests to preserve Iranian rights,” Rahnavard, who actively campaigned with her husband before the election, was quoted as saying.</p>.<p><br />Britons accused<br />Intelligence Minister Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei said some British passport-holders had been involved in “riots”. He said one of those arrested was “disguised as a journalist and he was collecting information needed by the enemies.”<br /><br />At least 10 protesters were killed in the worst violence on Saturday, and about seven more early last week. <br /></p>
<p> Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed on Wednesday he would not budge in response to protests over a disputed election that has sparked the biggest street demonstrations since the 1979 Islamic revolution.<br /><br />“I had insisted and will insist on implementing the law on the election issue... Neither the establishment nor the nation will yield to pressure at any cost,” Khamenei said.<br /><br />Now that riot police and religious militia have regained control of the streets, Iran’s hardline leadership seems to be taking a harsher line with its foreign and domestic critics.<br /><br />Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tehran was weighing whether to downgrade ties with Britain after tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats this week. He also announced he had “no plans” to attend a G8 meeting in Italy this week on Afghanistan.<br /><br />His remarks, a day after US President Barack Obama said he was “appaled and outraged” by the clampdown in Iran, provided more evidence of rising tension with the West.<br /><br />Western diplomats had seen the June 25-27 event as a rare chance for Group of Eight nations to discuss with regional powers such as Iran shared goals for Afghanistan and Pakistan.<br />The unexpected upheaval in Iran has thrown a spanner into Obama’s plans to engage the Islamic Republic in a substantive dialogue over its nuclear programme, which Tehran says is peaceful but which the West suspects is for bomb-making.<br /><br />Iran has accused the United States and Britain of fomenting post-election unrest and has paraded detained protesters on state television confessing that Western media had incited them.<br /><br />Wife demands action<br />Mousavi’s wife, Zahra Rahnavard, demanded the immediate release of people detained since the election and criticised the presence of armed forces in the streets, his website reported. <br /><br />“It is my duty to continue legal protests to preserve Iranian rights,” Rahnavard, who actively campaigned with her husband before the election, was quoted as saying.</p>.<p><br />Britons accused<br />Intelligence Minister Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei said some British passport-holders had been involved in “riots”. He said one of those arrested was “disguised as a journalist and he was collecting information needed by the enemies.”<br /><br />At least 10 protesters were killed in the worst violence on Saturday, and about seven more early last week. <br /></p>