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A demonstrator holds a poster during a protest in support of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi - Source: Reuters -
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Iran held a partial recount of its disputed election won by
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but one defeated reformist candidate
said annulment of the poll was the only way to regain the people's
trust.
In a sign that the process would not put into question
Ahmadinejad's victory, IRNA news agency said recounting so far in
one Tehran district gave him more votes than in the June 12 poll
that unleashed the worst unrest since the 1979 revolution.
Witnesses reported an increased police presence in some Tehran
squares ahead of the expected announcement of the recount outcome
later on Monday.
One witness said dozens of riot police vehicles were driving
towards southern Tehran.
Pro-reform cleric Mehdi Karoubi, fourth in the official count,
reiterated his call for the vote to be annulled in a letter to
Iran's top legislative body, the Guardian Council, which is
recounting a random 10% of the votes.
"The election's annulment is the only way to regain the people's
trust," said Karoubi, in a position shared with defeated candidate
Mirhossein Mousavi, who met on Sunday with a committee of the
Council in a bid to resolve a political crisis that has exposed
rifts in Iran's ruling establishment.
The Council's spokesman Abbasali Kadkhodai told state radio that
talks over Mousavi's proposal had no clear outcome, but the
moderate candidate was not available for comment. Mousavi has said
a national arbitration committee should examine the vote.
Despite the bloodshed and political drama in the world's fifth
biggest oil exporter, one senior Iranian oil official said the
turmoil had not affected its domestic energy sector or dealings
with foreign firms.
"I have continued with my meetings with representatives of
international oil companies and ... to my knowledge this has no
impact on energy in Iran," Hojjatollah Ghanimifard, vice president
of international affairs at the National Iranian Oil Company, told
Reuters in Doha.
Recount results
"This recount is being done before (state broadcaster) IRIB cameras
in various provinces and cities and we will subsequently announce
the outcome for public information. ... We will try to release the
outcome by the end of working hours (on Monday)," Kadkhodai
said.
Iran's state Press TV broadcast live from one Tehran district where
a Guardian Council supervisor was quoted as saying the recount in
this area showed no major irregularities.
The official told Press TV that 34 ballot boxes, representing 10%
of the total in the district, had been opened under full and
precise supervision.
"The results were positive, no irregularities in the results
announced," the official said.
State media have said 20 people were killed in violence since the
election won by the hard-line president, and authorities have
accused Mousavi of responsibility for the bloodshed.
He says the government is to blame.
Mass protests by demonstrators who said the poll was rigged were
broken up by pro-government Basij militia and riot police.
The demonstrations had echoes of the Islamic revolution that
toppled the shah.
The hard-line leadership, locked in a row with the West over its
nuclear programme and which says the poll was fair, has also blamed
the trouble on foreign powers rather than popular anger.
"Americans and the Zionists (Israel) wanted to destabilise
Iran," Intelligence Minister Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei said.
Iranian authorities said on Monday five out of nine detained
British embassy local staff had been released, while four others
were being held for questioning.
Britain has rejected accusations that the embassy helped to
foment the mass rallies.
"We are deeply concerned at their arrest and their continued
detention. These arrests are completely unacceptable and
unjustifiable," a Downing Street spokesman told reporters.
The United States and other major powers have questioned the
election's fairness and condemned the bloodshed in its turbulent
aftermath.
Britain and Iran have expelled two of each other's diplomats
since the election.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Sunday had demanded the
release of all the staff held and said his European Union
colleagues had agreed to a strong, collective response to any such
harassment and intimidation against EU missions.
Ahmadinejad called for a judicial inquiry into what he called the
suspicious shooting to death of music student Neda Agha-Soltan, who
became a symbol of opposition protests after her death was
broadcast on the internet.
Last week, Britain's The Times newspaper identified one person
captured on internet videos helping Neda as a doctor who has since
fled Iran.
It quoted the man, 38-year-old Dr Arash Hejazi, as saying she
was killed by a government militiaman.
The president suggested that the opposition and Iran's enemies
abroad aimed to misuse her death for their own political aims and
also to distort the pure and clean image of the Islamic Republic in
the world.
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