TEHRAN, Jan 31: Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said on Saturday talks to resolve a crisis over the country's parliamentary elections were at a "dead-end" after the Guardian Council confirmed bans on hundreds of reformists from standing in the vote.

"We have reached a dead-end with the Guardian Council," the official IRNA news agency quoted President Khatami as telling reporters. "This government will hold only free and competitive elections. Parliament should represent the will of the majority and all tendencies should be present in it," he said.

The news agency said the president would chair an emergency cabinet meeting to discuss the crisis, but it was not clear what the next move would be for the reformist president, who had previously voiced hope talks with hardliners would see most candidate bans overturned.

The Guardian Council - a constitutional watchdog comprising 12 ulema and jurists - announced on Friday it had approved 1,160 previously banned candidates to stand in the Feb 20 election.

That meant about 2,750 of the original 8,200 aspirant candidates for parliament's 290 seats were still barred from running.

Most of those still banned are reformist allies of President Khatami, including about 80 sitting MPs. They say the council is trying to tilt the vote in favour of conservative candidates, who lost control of parliament to reformists in 2000 elections.

The electoral standoff, which coincides with the 25th anniversary of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, has plunged the country into its worst political crisis for years and prompted international concern about its democratic future.

Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari, whose ministry organizes the election, said the vote would lack legitimacy.

"There is no possibility of holding free and competitive elections and we don't consider this election legitimate," IRNA quoted him as telling reporters.

Mousavi Lari had called on the council on Thursday to delay the vote, to allow more time to revise the candidate lists.

But the council, which has been a major weapon in the armoury of conservatives against President Khatami's reform efforts since his 1997 election win, rejected the postponement plea.-Reuters