An Iranian man sits on the ground after weekly Friday prayers at Tehran University in the Iranian capital, 02 June 2006. An Iranian cleric today dismissed US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s warning that the Islamic republic would incur ‘great costs’ if it rejected the latest international offer to curtail its nuclear programme. ‘We are ready to pay a great cost to defend our ideals,’ Hojatoleslam Ahmad Khatami said in his sermon at the main weekly Muslim prayers broadcast live on state radio.
