TEHRAN: Iran arrested eight local British Embassy staff triggering London’s fury and further exacerbating tensions with the West. The latest backlash against what Iranian leaders have said is foreign “meddling” came as opposition leaders rejected a panel set up to hold a partial recount in the hotly disputed presidential vote.

Iran has repeatedly accused Britain and the United States of stoking the unrest that swept the country after the June 12 election that returned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power amid complaints it was rigged. The Fars news agency said the eight UK Embassy staff members were arrested for having a “considerable role” in the riots.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said London had protested strongly to Tehran over the arrests, which he described as “harassment and intimidation of a kind which is quite unacceptable.” He said the release of the staff was Britain’s “top priority” and dismissed claims the embassy was behind the demonstrations as “wholly without foundation.” Miliband said his European Union colleagues had agreed to a “strong, collective response” to any such “harassment and intimidation” against EU missions.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, meanwhile, accused European and American officials of making “idiotic comments” about Iran.

“If the (Iranian) nation and officials are unanimous and united, then the temptations of international ill-wishers and interfering and cruel politicians would no longer have an impact,” state radio quoted Khamenei as saying. “By voicing absurd opinions on Iran, they speak in a way as if all their problems have been resolved and it is only Iran’s problems that remain,” Khamenei said.

Last week, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki warned Iran may downgrade ties with Britain after the two governments expelled diplomats in a tit-for-tat move.

Iran has also expelled the BBC correspondent in Tehran, arrested a British-Greek journalist, and accused a number of other British passport-holders of involvement in riots. Against the diplomatic tensions, Iranian opposition leaders continue to challenge the regime, rejecting a panel set up by election supervisory body the Guardian Council to hold a partial recount. Both Mir Hossein Mousavi, Ahmadinejad’s strongest rival, and another defeated candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, are demanding a new vote because of what they say are widespread irregularities.

Former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a political rival of President Ahmadinejad, called yesterday for a fair and thorough examination of complaints about poll rigging.

Breaking his silence, Rafsanjani described developments after the vote as a conspiracy by suspicious elements aimed at dividing people and the system and also targeting people’s trust in it, news agencies reported. Authorities yesterday banned a gathering reportedly by Mousavi supporters to mark the death anniversary of prominent revolutionaries killed in a bombing 28 years ago, the official IRNA news agency reported.

The Guardian Council, an unelected body of 12 jurists and clerics, said it would create a committee of political figures and candidate representatives to recount 10 percent of the ballots and draw up a report on the vote.

But Karroubi, a reformist former Parliament speaker who came a distant fourth, said in a letter to the council that a partial recount was “not enough” and called for an independent panel to probe “all aspects of the election.” Mousavi rejected the panel outright on Saturday, while the other defeated candidate, Mohsen Rezai, has agreed to be part of the committee if Mousavi and Karroubi also agree to nominate representatives to the body. But Mousavi, who has spearheaded the massive public opposition to the vote, has demanded a rerun, refusing to be cowed by a persistent crackdown against his supporters. “Limiting the probe into complaints about electoral irregularities to recounting 10 percent of the ballot boxes cannot attract people’s trust and convince public opinion about the results,” he said on his campaign website.