Dilma Rousseff did not say what she would do about the planned stoning after she takes office on Jan. 1, but Brazilian officials have tried to use their friendly ties with Iran to influence the case.

In August, Brazil offered to take in the woman if her life were spared. Iran rejected the offer.

There has been a world outcry over the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, convicted in 2006 of adultery.

Rousseff said Wednesday that Brazil will continue its policy of dialogue with all nations, regardless of what stance the US or Europe might take.

Rousseff was elected last weekend as Brazil’s first female president.
 

France’s foreign minister, meanwhile, said that the Iranian woman will not be executed on Wednesday, citing a telephone conversation with his Iranian counterpart.

German-based human rights group the International Committee against Stoning said on Tuesday Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani would be hanged on Wednesday instead of stoned, although Iranian authorities have declined to comment on the issue.

Ashtiani’s stoning sentence was suspended earlier this year after prominent political and religious figures called it medieval, barbaric and brutal. Brazil, a close ally of Iran, offered to give the 43-year-old mother of two asylum.

“Manouchehr Mottaki assured me that Iranian legal authorities had not yet reached a verdict in the affair relating to (Ashtiani) and that the information regarding her alleged execution did not correspond to reality,” Bernard Kouchner said in a statement.

He added he had spoken to Mottaki on Wednesday morning asking him to renounce the execution and grant her a pardon.

Later on Wednesday, Mottaki’s spokesman said the West was using the issue to beat Iran which it was already pressuring over its nuclear program.

“They have become so shameless as to turn the case of Sakineh Mohammadi, who has committed both crime and betrayal, into a human rights case against our nation,” Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted as saying by the students news agency ISNA.

“The other side is only looking for an excuse to confront the Islamic establishment in Iran,” he told the official news agency IRNA, adding that if Iran backed down on some issues, the West would keep the pressure on “and there will be nothing left of the revolution or establishment.”