Britain continued to push other European countries on Thursday to take a tough stance against Iran for detaining at least one employee of the British Embassy in Tehran, but European Union diplomats meeting here were searching for other ways out of the standoff. The Iranian authorities, who have taken to blaming foreigners for the recent unrest that followed disputed presidential elections, have directed much of their ire at Britain and arrested nine Iranian staff members of the British Embassy over the weekend. Several have since been released. Iran's leaders are struggling to put the elections, and the passionate dissatisfaction the results unleashed, behind them. Although the government managed to halt the huge protests days ago using tactics that included mass arrests, it has been unable, or unwilling, to silence Mir Hussein Moussavi, the moderate who says the election was stolen from him, and some of his influential supporters. On Wednesday, Mohammad Khatami, the charismatic former president who remains extremely popular in Iran, made his strongest statements yet. He condemned the election, which the government said Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the incumbent president, won in a landslide, as well as the bloody government crackdown of the protests that followed. Khatami called the election 'a coup against the republicanism of the system,' and warned, 'Do not think that suppressing the protests would put an end to them. They will emerge again but in different forms.' He also spoke caustically of the mass arrests: 'If these people have committed crimes, why are their legal rights as citizens not preserved, why don't they have access to a lawyer, why are they not tried in a court, why haven't they been charged?' This week, the Interior Ministry said it would withdraw the permit for the Association of Combatant Clergy, a political party to which Khatami belongs, as well as two other reformist parties that have thrown their support behind him in the past. The number of British Embassy staff members being held remained unclear on Thursday. Iranian state television said all but one of the nine were released. But Carl Bildt, the foreign minister of Sweden, which holds the European Union's rotating presidency, said 'more than one' remained in custody. Diplomats are expected to continue their discussions about how to handle the issue on Friday. 