BERLIN, 15 September 2005 — The head of the UN nuclear watchdog fears referring Iran to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions now would be wrong and instead wants to give Tehran one final chance to comply, diplomats said yesterday.

The governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency begins meeting on Monday. The main issue will be a joint EU-US plan to refer Tehran to the Security Council, which could lead to economic sanctions, due to fears Iran is developing atomic weapons.

“Everything points in the direction of the need for more time. So it would be in everybody’s favor to give it some three or four weeks,” a senior diplomat close to the UN atomic watchdog told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The European Union’s three biggest powers — France, Britain and Germany — joined forces with Washington to back a Council referral after Tehran resumed sensitive nuclear activities at its Isfahan uranium processing plant last month. Work at the plant had been suspended under a November deal with the EU. Iran denies wanting atom bombs and says the West is trying to deprive it of its right to a full nuclear energy program.

The diplomat said IAEA chief Mohamed El-Baradei suggested to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the IAEA’s governing board could instead set a deadline for Iran to resume a suspension of sensitive atomic activities and help the UN resolve outstanding questions about Iran’s nuclear program.

“It would be an (IAEA board) resolution that would call on Iran to not only go back to full suspension but to provide the transparency and cooperation requested by El-Baradei. It would have to have a deadline,” the diplomat said. “It is clear that everybody is looking for a solution that would avoid confrontation. This would give the time needed to arrive at a package solution,” the diplomat added.

Meanwhile, the wife of jailed Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji complained yesterday that she had had no news of the dissident for three weeks and said he was being held in “medical quarantine.” “For the past 20 days, I have had no news of my husband and I am very worried about his health after such a long hunger strike,” Massoumeh Shafiie wrote in an open letter to Reporters Without Borders, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Ganji, Iran’s most prominent political prisoner, was sent back to jail from hospital more than a week ago after agreeing to end a hunger strike that lasted close to two months. Shafiie said she had been told by judiciary officials that Ganji was “in medical quarantine, which adds to our worries” and added that they should “keep their promises” and release him.

On Tuesday, Justice Minister Jamal Karimi-Rad said Ganji was in good health and denied he was back in solitary confinement. Ganji, 46, was sentenced to six years in prison in 2001 after he wrote articles implicating several regime officials in a string of gruesome murders of opposition intellectuals and writers — crimes that shocked the country. Last month, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote to Iran’s new hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to ask for Ganji’s release “on humanitarian grounds.”

In another development, Ahmadinejad told Iranian expatriates in the US that Iran was the flag-bearer of the Islamic movement and that the spirit of the Iranian Revolution was still alive, Iran’s ISNA news agency reported. “The spirit in Iran has returned to the initial phase of the (1979) revolution, only today we also have 26 years experience,” ISNA quoted Ahmadinejad as telling Iranian expatriates in New York on Tuesday.

Ahmadinejad, a member of Iran’s ultraconservative party Abadgaran (Development) party, said that Iran’s Islamic society and its resistance against Western protests had attracted worldwide admiration. Almost three million Iranians live in the US, mostly in California. The Iranian government is anxious to woo these potential investors back to Iran.

The Iranian president arrived in New York on Tuesday where he is scheduled to address the 60th United Nations General Assembly twice. His first speech yesterday was to deal with the proposed reform of the UN and in his second, on Saturday, he will outline proposals for resolving the dispute over Iran’s controversial nuclear program.