A world wary of Iran's nuclear programme reacted cautiously yesterday to hard-line leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's hotly disputed re-election. Some expressed hope that the Islamic republic's president will soften his defiance and warm to recent United States (US) overtures.

For the volatile Middle East and the West alike, the stakes were high.

Iran is a key economic player in the region, a perceived threat to Israel's national security - and a major worry for the US and allies who fear Tehran is trying to build an atomic weapon.

Ahmadinejad's announced landslide victory over his reformist opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, in a tumultuous election marred by allegations of widespread fraud, "will increase American pressure" to engage Iran diplomatically, said Eyal Zisser, an analyst with the Tel Aviv-based Moshe Dayan Center.

declared victor

Alluding to opposition allegations that the outcome was rigged, and clashes that erupted across Iran after Ahmadinejad's government declared him the victor, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she hoped the outcome reflects the "genuine will and desire" of Iranian voters.

Clinton spoke at an event in Niagara Falls, Ontario, with Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, who said his country also was "deeply concerned" by reports of irregularities.

Hadi Ghaemi, spokesman for the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, denounced the outcome as "a Tehran Tiananmen" - a reference to China's brutal 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy activists - and urged the international community not to recognise the result.

President Barack Obama has offered dialogue with Iran after a nearly 30-year diplomatic freeze between the two nations. Iran insists its nuclear programme is peaceful and geared solely towards generating electricity; US officials contend it's trying to enrich uranium to weapons grade.

little change expected

Privately, many diplomats at the International Atomic Energy Agency - the Vienna-based United Nations nuclear watchdog - said they expected little change regardless of who wound up in charge of Iran's government.

That is because Iran's main policies and any major decisions, such as possible talks with Washington or nuclear policies, rest with the ruling clerics headed by Iran's unelected supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"On the nuclear question, it's very clear that the ultimate decision maker is Ayatollah Khamenei," said Mohsen Milani, an expert on Iran at the University of South Florida. At best, he said, Ahmadinejad plays a subtle and nuanced role.

"The central question of security or war and peace is not in his domain. It's unambiguously in the domain of the supreme leader," Milani said.

And more Ahmadinejad spells less change, said former President Jimmy Carter.

"I don't think it will have any real effect because the same person will be there as has been there," Carter said after meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in the West Bank city of Ramallah.