Iran has declared its hotly disputed presidential vote to be valid, after a partial recount of only 10 per cent of votes.
The country's election oversight body on Monday rejected opposition allegations of fraud and will not agree to the opposition's request for a new vote.
Supporters of opposition reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi have been protesting since the June 12 victory of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Mousavi and his supporters claim the election was fixed.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday questioned the recount's utility.
"They have a huge credibility gap with their own people as to the election process. And I don't think that's going to disappear by any finding of a limited review of a relatively small number of ballots," she told reporters in Washington.
Asked if the United States would recognize Ahmadinejad as Iran's legitimate president, she said "We're going to take this a day at a time."
Patrick Martin of the Globe and Mail told 麻豆影视 Channel that the purpose of the recount was more to appease clerics within the government, rather than a genuine attempt to root out fraud.
In what's seen as an attempt to appease the opposition, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he would conduct an investigation into the shooting death of a young woman who was killed during opposition protests.
Neda Agha Soltan has became an icon of Iran's ragtag opposition after gruesome video of her bleeding to death on a Tehran street was circulated worldwide.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has tried to blame the death of Neda Agha Soltan on foreign intelligence agents. His website said Soltan was slain by "unknown agents and in a suspicious" way, convincing him that "enemies of the nation" were responsible.
But an Iranian doctor who said he tried to save her told the BBC last week she apparently was shot by a member of the volunteer Basij militia.
International tensions continued to escalate with Iran on over the weekend as Iran detained nine British Embassy staff members, however, five of them were released on Monday.
Four other staffers are still being interrogated, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said.
The staffers were accused of mingling with protesters.
State television said the cleric-controlled judiciary has appointed a team "to help clarify the fate of the detainees."
Despite the detentions, Iran said it has no plans to downgrade relations with Britain.
"Reduction of diplomatic ties is not on our agenda for any country, including Britain," Qashqavi said.
The escalating tensions came as opposition protests continued over the weekend.
Iranian authorities said that hundreds of people have been arrested, however, the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights claims there have been at least 2,000 arrests.
According to eye-witness accounts, riot police fired tear gas at a crowd estimated to number about 3,000, which had gathered near the Ghoba Mosque in north Tehran.
Some witnesses told The Associated Press that police used clubs to beat protesters, some of whom sustained broken bones.
The accounts could not be independently verified, as most journalists are barred from attending rallies and must report from their offices.
With files from The Associated Press
