Ayatollah denounces Western overtures

Attempts by Britain and the European Union to solicit the support of Iran were given an ominous public rebuff yesterday when the country's powerful "supreme leader", Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, pledged Tehran would "not provide any help to America and its allies in their attack" against Afghanistan.

Mr Khamenei used the occasion of an address to veterans and the families of those killed in the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war to deliver the strongest attack on US foreign policy since the atrocities of 11 September, telling Washington: "You have always caused blows to Iran's interests. How dare you request help ... in order to attack the innocent Muslim nation of Afghanistan which has suffered and which is our neighbour."

For the first time since 11 September there were chants of "Death to America" from the audience – which included many disabled veterans – during the Ayatollah's address. Since the atrocities the chants have not been heard in Tehran during the normal Friday prayers. Although not necessarily the final word from the Tehran leadership, the criticism of America is a potentially serious setback after tentative, if ambiguous, signs that the political leadership was warming towards some measure of tacit backing for the US and UK-led "war against terrorism" – and by extension, military action in Afghanistan.

The hard line was at least partially reinforced earlier in the day. Iran's recent more moderate overtures towards the West in the aftermath of the attacks came from the reformist President Mohammad Khatami, who is locked in his own power struggle with the religious hardliners led by Mr Khamenei.

But President Khatami criticised President Bush yesterday, telling Tehran University students: "A powerful human being can become so arrogant that he thinks he can distinguish between good and evil on his own."

President Khatami strongly attacked Mr Bush for his remarks about a "crusade" against terrorism and for saying, as Dr Khatami put it, that "those who are with us are against terrorism, those who are against us are terrorists". This smacked of "Machiavellianism" and carried the danger of a clash between civilisations dominating geopolitics. This accusation came after Jack Straw and the European Union delegation who visited the President on Tuesday had gone out of their way to stress that this was precisely what the West wanted to avoid.

There was some speculation in Tehran last night that the new hard line had emerged after a meeting the previous day of the powerful National Security Council in which the religious leadership may have reasserted its influence. Diplomats reacted cautiously, saying that they needed to study the full text before respond. They acknowledged that it could be a reversal but suggested that liberal opinion could soon reassert itself.

Diplomats remain hopeful that the apparent Iranian position during the talks with Mr Straw – namely that action might be supported provided there was UN backing and sufficient evidence of Osama bin Laden's involvement was forthcoming – can be sustained.

While firmly restating these provisos after meeting the EU delegation, Dr Kamal Kharrazi, the Iranian foreign minister, did acknowledge that the UN had a right to defend itself from attack under the UN Charter. British and EU officials have been anxious to stress that they too want to see a "focused'' initial action in Afghanistan which does not trigger a wider war in the Middle East.

Nevertheless the Ayatollah's pronouncement yesterday will cast doubt over whether that will be enough to secure the backing of Iran.

But Chris Patten, the EU external affairs commissioner, was unequivocal in Tehran yesterday in saying that any action directed at innocent men, women and children fell within the definition of a terrorist. "There is no such thing as a good terrorist or a bad terrorist,'' he said.

Earlier, Mr Kharrazi had defended Hizbollah, which he declared was "considered as a resistance movement to foreign occupation". But this sharp difference may itself be academic if the supreme leader's unbridled remarks at the commemoration yesterday reflect a hardening position within the leadership to which the political establishment will have to bow.