The five veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council reached agreement early today that the U.N. nuclear agency should report Iran to the Security Council for possible sanctions because of its uranium enrichment program.

But the foreign ministers of permanent council members China, Russia, the U.S., France and Britain as well as Germany and the European Union said that no Security Council action against the Tehran government should be considered until March.

The agreement appears to resolve, for now, a standoff in which Russia and China opposed any such action by the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, a U.N. watchdog, which will meet Thursday. A vote to send Iran before the council appears all but certain, though there is some doubt whether it will be unanimous.

The delay provides a window for the Iranian government to reconsider its decision this month to reopen its nuclear facility at Natanz and resume research into enriching and reprocessing uranium. Iran says its program is for civilian nuclear power, but the U.S. and European Union believe the country is taking steps to develop material for nuclear weapons.

Capping a day of marathon diplomacy in London and Brussels, the compromise was hammered out at a four-hour dinner of foreign ministers here, hosted by Britain"s Jack Straw ahead of a special meeting of the IAEA in Vienna.

The agreement early today means that none of the five permanent members of the Security Council will oppose discussing Iran"s nuclear program at the council.

But it was not clear whether Russia and China were prepared to take the next step: voting to impose penalties, including sanctions, on Iran if it is found to be violating its Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty obligations.

Russia and China have close trade relations with Iran, and Russia is the principal contractor for Iran"s nuclear power plant at Bushehr, on the southern Persian Gulf coast, which is scheduled to come on line later this year.

Getting the Russians and Chinese on board posed a stiff diplomatic challenge for the United States, Britain, Germany and France, all of which had said reporting Iran to the U.N. was necessary in the face of Tehran"s continued defiance of the international community"s wish that it desist from uranium enrichment in any form.

Iran ended a two-year moratorium on nuclear research Jan. 10 when it broke seals the IAEA had put on its Natanz facility. Russia recently offered a compromise under which it would help Iran enrich uranium on Russian territory, where the material could be safeguarded against diversion to nuclear weapons. Iran has said it is willing to explore the proposal. Iran also has promised that IAEA inspectors could be present and monitor its nuclear research.

Neither of those gestures has allayed Western suspicions that the Islamic Republic"s aim is to acquire the know-how to produce weapons-grade uranium.

In March, IAEA Director-General Mohammed ElBaradei is expected to produce a report outlining Iran"s nuclear program, and detail aspects of it that inspectors believe need clarification from Iranian authorities.

Sanctions on Iran pose a risk for Western countries. Iran has threatened to end cooperation with IAEA inspectors and hinted that it could cut back production of petroleum, driving up world oil prices.

But that danger apparently was outweighed at Monday night"s dinner by the prospect that Iran, one of the most militantly anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli governments in the world, could be on the verge of acquiring technology that would allow it to produce a nuclear weapon in several years.

Western officials have been particularly alarmed by statements from Iran"s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who said Israel had no right to exist in the Middle East.

Speaking before the dinner meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said there was no choice but to bring Iran before the Security Council.

"Let"s remember what happened here," she said. "Several months ago, there was a resolution to refer. The states that voted for that resolution in the [IAEA] board of governors agreed that we would not go through with the referral, to give time for the Iranians to respond. And how did they respond? They responded by breaking their moratorium, ending negotiations and breaking the seals on the equipment so that they could enrich and reprocess.

"So I think we"ve had our answer from the Iranian government. And it"s not a very satisfactory one."

But Rice also noted that bringing Iran before the council, rather than keeping the matter within the IAEA, would not in itself solve anything.

"After all, going to the Security Council is not the end of diplomacy. It is just diplomacy in a different, more robust context," she said.