NEW YORK, Oct 8: The United States says it has an agreement with four other permanent members of UN Security Council and Germany to impose sanctions against Iran over its refusal to suspend its Uranium enrichment programme following a meeting of top officials in London, according to report in the New York Times.

The Times, however, noted that none of the other nations attending the meeting —- Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia —- issued such an explicit statement after the meeting. In the past, China and Russia have both said they would be wary of sanctions against Iran, despite its defiance of international demands to end nuclear enrichment.

The US State Department praised the agreement, which was reached at a one-day meeting here of senior officials from the six nations, American diplomats conceded that there could still be long and difficult negotiations over what penalties to impose and their timing.

Nicholas Burns, the American under secretary of state for political affairs, told the newspaper after the meeting that whatever the other nations’ diplomatic language, “What we’ve got is an agreement to go to the Security Council” to punish Iran.

In essence, Mr Burns said, the six nations “concluded that Iran is not prepared to negotiate with us” based on conditions set last spring, and that “we’ll go forward with sanctions”, the Times reported.

But he admitted the issue was far from decided. “I think there’s going to be a spirited debate about what kind of sanctions should be agreed to.” Mr Burns was the senior American negotiator at the talks for the most of the day because Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who travelled here from Iraq, was delayed when her military jet —- and its replacement —- developed mechanical problems, stranding her in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil for about two hours.

The German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who attended the London meeting, may have come closest to the American statement when he told ZDF television on Friday that “if there is no new decision from inside the Iranian leadership, there is at present no alternative to having the Security Council deal with this conflict.”

The French foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, was quoted as saying that the six nations have “decided, in a unified manner, to work together in the next few days to speak about proportionate and reversible sanctions.”

The debate over Iran’s nuclear programme is being conducted while the United States weighs a broad list of new sanctions to bring against North Korea, if it follows through on its threat to carry out a nuclear test.