Iran Extends Deadline for Election Inquiry: Via NYTimes.com .

The Iranian government offered a few small concessions to the opposition on Monday, extending by five days its deadline to investigate opposition claims of vote rigging in this month’s disputed presidential election, beginning a new limited recount, and releasing five of nine British Embassy employees detained in Tehran over the weekend.

But the government’s underlying stance on the electoral dispute remained unchanged, and there were reports that protesters were gathering in Tehran again on Monday evening as they have for more than two weeks, drawing a broad and violent crackdown. On Sunday, security forces aggressively dispersed several thousand protesters, beating and firing tear gas as they gathered at a mosque in support of the defeated presidential candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also called for a judicial inquiry into the “suspicious” death of Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman who was shot and killed on the sidelines of a protest on June 20. Her death, captured on film, has become a symbol of the crackdown.

Adding to government accusations that foreign agents played a role in the killing, Mr. Ahmadinejad said Monday that it had been exploited by enemies “for their own political aims and also to distort the pure and clean image of the Islamic Republic in the world,” the official IRNA news agency reported.

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Political analysts in Tehran said the authorities seemed to be playing for time and hoping to avert further mass protests when the Guardian Council certifies the final results.

The Guardian Council, a 12-member clerical panel, also said on Monday that Mr. Moussavi had offered proposals to “rebuild public trust.”

Press TV, the English-language state satellite broadcaster, said the council had found Mr. Moussavi’s proposals to be “positive.” It did not say what they were.

Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, the council spokesman, was quoted as saying the panel has “given another opportunity to Moussavi” to substantiate his grievances about the election.

At a news conference on Monday broadcast on state television, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hassan Qashqavi, addressed the detained employees of the British Embassy. He said the four who remain in custody were “being interrogated,” according to a translation on Press TV, the English-language state satellite broadcaster.

But he rebutted earlier suggestions from Tehran that the government was planning to downgrade its diplomatic relations with Britain, which it accuses along with the United States and Israel of fomenting protests that turned into a bloody crackdown by the government’s security forces.

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