WASHINGTON – Iranian and European officials are close to forging a deal they hope will pause the Islamic republic’s enrichment of uranium and persuade the president to drop his insistence that Iran’s prior violations of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty be referred to the U.N. Security Council.

Iran’s chief negotiator on the nuclear issue, Hossein Mousavian, told Iranian TV yesterday that talks at the expert level with envoys from Britain, France, and Germany had reached an agreement. “We had 22 hours of negotiations,” he said. “They were very difficult and complicated negotiations but we reached a preliminary agreement at the expert level.”

Mr. Mousavian’s optimism is a turnaround from his government’s position on the deal before President Bush won re-election. Mr. Mousavian in October told Iranian TV, “We are not going to count on the Europeans for fuel and we will continue on our path to be independent in this matter.” Meanwhile this week Iran’s Parliament is expected to pass legislation banning the production of nuclear weapons.

If the respective governments engaged in the negotiations agree to the deal, it would commit the European side to eventually supplying Iran with a second light-water nuclear reactor. In exchange, Iran would agree to answer the outstanding questions of the International Atomic Energy Agency, suspend uranium enrichment during those inspections, and return to Russia the spent nuclear fuel from the Bushehr facility that Moscow helped Iran build.

The deal would also commit Britain, France, and Germany to oppose taking Iran’s violations to the U.N. Security Council, where the country could face international censure and possibly sanctions. A diplomatic source in Washington familiar with the working agreement said yesterday that Europe’s impending deal with Iran would make it next to impossible for America to rally the votes to refer Iran’s program to the Security Council.

However, one administration official yesterday said that the president would continue to press for the United Nations as the forum to deal with the Iranian nuclear program. “The problem with the IAEA is that it is not the correct place to make these kinds of deals. It is a technical body; it should only make technical judgments.”

As the president prepares to reshuffle his cabinet for his second term, some of the chief advocates for European engagement with Iran are likely to leave the government. Secretary of State Powell, for example, last week told senior staff that he planned to leave his job by January. If Mr. Powell leaves, his deputy, Richard Armitage, is also likely to go. Mr. Armitage personally involved himself in the intricate diplomacy that first gave America’s blessing to the European-Iranian nuclear talks.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bush’s more hawkish advisers appear to be staying. One of the sharpest critics of negotiations with Iran is an undersecretary of state, John Bolton. Mr. Bolton has been mentioned as an early candidate for national security adviser or deputy national security adviser, if Condoleezza Rice either moves to another job in the Bush administration or leaves the government altogether. One of Mr. Bolton’s rivals of those jobs, former ambassador Robert Blackwill, on Friday announced he was leaving the administration.

The IAEA’s board of governors will next meet November 25, when they will likely consider this very question. So far, IAEA director-general Mohammed ElBaradei has pleaded with Iran to heed its pledge to stop the enrichment of uranium while inspectors continue to catalogue its entire nuclear program, much of which was hidden from Mr. El-Baradei until 2002, when Tehran reluctantly agreed to new inspections after satellite photos disclosed an entire centrifuge facility in Natanz. Remaining questions for the IAEA include the countries of origin for technical equipment and proper explanations for why some equipment the Iranians claim was built domestically contain levels of trace uranium contamination.

The State Department has already said it would oppose Mr. ElBaradei in his quest for a third term as director general for the IAEA. Many White House officials before the election believed Mr. ElBaradei was trying to damage the president in the election by informing the U.N. Security Council about the possible looting of at least 377 tons of plastic explosives from an ammo depot in Iraq known as al-Qaqaa.