Partial recount in Iran, reformers want annulment: Via Reuters on Yahoo! News.

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 toward 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 percent 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 percent 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.

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