"Of course I am going to Iran," Putin told a news conference after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "If you react to various threats and recommendations of the security services, then you should sit at home."

Kremlin officials had earlier said plans for the visit, in which Putin is to discuss Iran's disputed nuclear program, were in doubt after a Russian news agency report that there was a plot afoot to try to kill him in Tehran.

Iran dismissed the report, calling it "psychological warfare" by Tehran's enemies -- an apparent reference to Western powers -- to undermine Russian-Iranian relations.

Back in Moscow, the report -- based on an unnamed security source but confirmed in the Kremlin -- intrigued commentators who focused more on the image it projected of Putin at a delicate political time rather than on the reported threat itself.

"I don't known if it's true or not true, but it makes him look like a hero, if he goes there. It makes him look like Jean-Claude Van Damme, or Steven Seagal - it's a drama," veteran Russian broadcaster Sergey Dorenko told Reuters.

The plot reports, that dominated media and air waves in Russia on Monday, come ahead of parliamentary elections in December and Putin's scheduled departure from the Kremlin in March at the end of two terms in office.

They come at a time of speculation over how the president, hugely popular at home, will maintain some grasp on power in Russia after he has quit the top Kremlin job.

The dramatic tale would serve to increase a feeling of insecurity in Russians at the thought of his disappearance and thereby increase their psychological dependence on him, argued Nikolai Zlobin, director of the Russian and Eurasia Project at the Washington-based World Security Institute.

"I think this is nothing to do with Iran and nothing to do with terrorism. I think this is an example of the struggle inside Putin's administration," said Zlobin who was in Moscow.

The 55-year-old Kremlin leader cultivates a tough-guy image.

He often publicly resorts to barracks-room language to make his points, his judo prowess is well-documented and this summer he was photographed showing off his muscular torso while on a Siberia hunting trip.

RARE IRAN VISIT

"He will be in Tehran tomorrow. I cannot confirm his departure time," Kremlin spokesman Alexander Smirnov said in Wiesbaden, where Putin's limousine was parked outside the hotel where he has been staying.

The visit, the first by a Kremlin leader since Josef Stalin in 1943, has drawn intense interest given Russia's possible leverage in curbing Iranian atomic ambitions, due to Moscow's existing trade and nuclear supply ties with Tehran.

The office of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Putin would arrive in Tehran on Tuesday morning, not on Monday evening as earlier announced.

Putin, who has resisted Western pressure in a group of six world powers for harsher sanctions against Iran, said patience and negotiation were the best tools for dealing with the Islamic Republic and that trying to intimidate Tehran was "hopeless."

"If we have a chance to keep up these direct contacts, then we will do it, hoping for a positive, mutually advantageous result," he said.

Merkel took a tougher line, saying the United Nations must impose more sanctions on Iran if it does not comply with demands to suspend uranium enrichment, which Western powers suspect is a disguised quest for atom bombs. Iran denies seeking such bombs.

Russia's Interfax news agency said on Sunday that Putin had been warned by his special services of a possible assassination plot during his visit to Tehran this week.

Russian media are mostly controlled by the government and it would be unthinkable for a major news organization to report an alleged plot against Putin without prior official approval.

Russian television channels said plots to kill Putin were foiled in St Petersburg in 2000 and Baku, Azerbaijan, in 2001.

Putin was officially traveling to Tehran to take part in a summit of Caspian Sea states.

But a planned private meeting with Ahmadinejad could give him a chance to seek a compromise on the nuclear issue.

Although the United States wants a tougher line on Iran and is much more suspicious of Tehran's nuclear objectives than Russia, Washington has repeatedly praised Moscow's cooperation in the group of six, which is dealing with Iran's case.

Putin has in turn promised during his visit to stick to the established six-party line on Iran -- to encourage Tehran to cooperate with International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and prove its program is intended only for peaceful purposes.

(Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov and Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow)

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