Iran warned yesterday that if its nuclear file is sent to the United Nations Security Council it would retreat from current diplomatic negotiations. Turtle Bay diplomats, meanwhile, continued to develop a “progressive approach” meant to maintain a broad consensus among council members so that punitive measures against Tehran’s mullahs can eventually be imposed.

Although sanctions are not expected to be enacted by the council at first, the American U.N. ambassador warned yesterday against a prolonged investigative process that would allow Iran time to further advance its nuclear weapons program. He said America is “beefing up” its defenses against the Iranian threat.

The Iranian warning, made by nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, came after Tehran last week failed to convince European diplomats that the regime has anything new to offer, and after negotiations in Moscow also appeared stuck. It also came after President Bush ushered India into the nuclear club last week, raising cries of double standards in Tehran and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Representatives of the five permanent members of the Security Council – America, Russia, China, Britain, and France – met with Secretary General Annan on Friday to discuss the diplomacy on Iran. Along with Germany, which is involved in European negotiations with Iran, diplomats from the five are already considering a statement which could be accepted by the 15-member council as early as this week, according to a European diplomat who asked for anonymity.

America wants the Security Council statement to include a 30-day deadline for Iran to stop its nuclear weapons program and comply with the International Atomic Energy Agency’s resolutions, or face future sanctions, The Washington Post reported over the weekend.

A report prepared by the Vienna based agency’s director, Mohamed el-Baradei, concluded that although there is no proof Iran is working on a weapon, it has failed its obligation to allow IAEA inspectors to fully inspect the program, rendering them unable to clear Tehran of suspicion. That report, according to a February 5 IAEA resolution, is to be presented to the Council after the conclusion of the board’s regular meeting, which begins today in Vienna.

Iran, however, has yet to acknowledge that resolution. “If Iran’s nuclear dossier is referred to the U.N. Security Council, [large-scale] uranium enrichment will be resumed,” Mr. Larijani warned in Tehran yesterday, according to the Associated Press. Iran will “pursue [its] own path” if there is a military attack to halt its nuclear program, he added, adding that the Russian compromise remains open to discussion.

Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, is expected to brief Washington and Turtle Bay on last week’s attempts in Moscow to convince Tehran to allow enrichment of uranium for use by Iran to take place on Russian soil. Like the European negotiators, the Russians are said to have been frustrated by Iran’s negotiation tactics, but nobody expects Moscow to abruptly drop the talks with Tehran or easily agree to a threat of U.N. sanctions.

European and American diplomats are attempting to co-opt the Russians and Chinese by using a “gradual and progressive approach” that will start in earnest this week, according to the European diplomat.

“Nobody has said that we have to rush immediately to sanctions,” Secretary of State Rice said in New Delhi on Saturday.

Mr. Bolton, meanwhile, said America will use “all tools at our disposal,” to stop the Iranian threat. “The longer we wait to confront the threat Iran poses, the harder and more intractable it will become to solve,” Mr. Bolton told the annual meeting of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee yesterday.

The Tehran regime “must be made aware that if it continues down the path of international isolation, there will be tangible and painful consequences,” he added.

Israel is reported to have prepared its own military response, but addressing AIPAC yesterday, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the world must stop Iran’s race toward nuclear weapons capabilities. “Israel cannot do it alone,” he said.

According to a report in Time magazine yesterday, American officials have begun preparing a presentation to the council, based on intelligence from a computer smuggled out of Iran by a nuclear scientist, that concludes that a hallow sphere found in Tehran’s arsenal could be used only in a bomb.

Iran has accused America of manufacturing evidence, but a European diplomat versed in nuclear issues has similarly briefed Turtle Bay reporters and diplomats on known evidence that Iran is working on a weapons program. The new hard-line taken by the Europeans, and specifically the French, is in stark contrast to the situation at the Security Council on the eve of the Iraq war in 2003.