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Serious differences have emerged within Iran's top leadership, media reports suggest, pitting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president, against Aytollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader.

Ahmadinejad has boycotted cabinet meetings since Heider Moslehi, the intelligence minister, was reinstated after he was forced out of the government.

Moslehi was restored to the powerful post by Khamenei after Ahmadinejad had forced him to resign on April 17.

Ahmadinejad's opponents, meanwhile, have seized the opportunity.

According to the Shargh newspaper, a group of 216 lawmakers, more than two-third of the 290 members in the Iranian parliament, have issued a letter to Ahmadinejad, urging him to call off his cabinet boycott for the good of the country.

"You are expected to follow the supreme leader," the lawmakers wrote.

On Friday, a hardline cleric used his nationally broadcast sermon to indirectly warn Ahmadinejad that he would be moving into dangerous territory by escalating his challenges to Khamenei.