UNITED NATIONS — China and Russia yesterday allowed the U.N. Security Council to resume considering punitive, though non-military, measures against Iran over its nuclear program, and also inched closer toward the rest of the council’s stance on North Korea.

By doing so, China and Russia, the two powerful veto-wielding council members, stepped back from their insistence on endlessly negotiating with rogue regimes as the only solution to two major international crises, thereby allowing the resumption of a more muscular diplomacy.

The American ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, meanwhile, warned that North Korea and Iran, members of President Bush’s “axis of evil,” are “watching each other” and testing the council’s resolve. The council, he added, should prove it can answer the challenge, or else the response would come outside its purview.

China — Kim Jong Il’s major benefactor — reluctantly came to the conclusion yesterday that Pyongyang has yet to respond positively to diplomacy. Separately, the foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the Security Council declared in Paris that the diplomatic overtures they made to Tehran have failed. “The Iranians have given no indication at all that they are ready to engage seriously on the substance of our proposals,” their statement said.

Until yesterday, Russia and China had blocked tough Security Council initiatives, launched after Tehran broke agreements it made with European negotiators by resuming uranium enrichment, and after North Korea violated similar agreements by testing ballistic missiles.

In both cases, the American and European members of the council attempted to turn the broken promises into binding resolutions that would enforce compliance and punish future violations. China and Russia, however, argued that since Security Council diplomacy led to the war in Iraq, they could not support resolutions that include enforcement measures.

Nevertheless, yesterday in Paris China and Russia agreed to negotiate a new resolution on such measures against Iran — though only after making sure that military enforcement would not be included among the resolution’s approved consequences if the Iranians were to violate the agreement.

“We have no choice but to return to the U.N. Security Council,” Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy of France said in a statement on behalf of his colleagues from China, Russia, Britain, America, and Germany. If Iran remains in non-compliance, he added, “We will work for the adoption of measures under Article 41 of Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter.”

Employed in situations presenting a “threat to international peace and security,” like the case of Saddam’s Iraq, Chapter 7 allows for various punitive measures, including, in extreme instances, military options. But Article 41 allows only for punitive measures “not involving the use of armed force,” such as economic sanctions.

American, British, and French diplomats said that the move by Russia and China presents a positive shift, which might lay the ground for more muscular actions in the future. Top council members immediately began negotiating a resolution proposal that might be presented for a vote as early as next week.

Chinese diplomats dispatched to Pyongyang Monday to try and sway Mr. Kim, meanwhile, were unsuccessful. “So far we have not received any feedback from the North Korean leadership,” China’s U.N. ambassador, Wang Guangya, told reporters, saying that the diplomatic mission would end tomorrow.

While continuing to threaten to veto a Japanese-sponsored resolution, Mr. Wang said his country and Russia had yesterday presented their own proposal for a resolution on North Korea.

The Japanese, British, and American ambassadors noted that until now all China and Russia had offered was a set of texts for a non-binding council statement on North Korea, which British ambassador Emyr Jones-Parry called “weak.” Yesterday, Mr. Jones-Parry said, they proposed a resolution “which is not bad.”

The proposal determined that Pyongyang’s missile launch had had a “negative effect on the peace and stability in the region and beyond.” However, the proposal fell short of calling it “a threat,” and of using the same part of Chapter 7 that Russia and China agreed to deploy in the case of Iran. “Any use of Chapter 7 is a serious matter,” Mr. Wang said.

Mr. Bolton said that while China and Russia were inching closer to the other members of the council, America wants to enact a resolution that would make “mandatory” the agreements North Korea has signed. Despite the Chinese threat of veto, he said, the Japanesesponsored resolution should be voted on soon, as should a resolution on Iran.