The major world powers have agreed on a proposal for new sanctions against Iran, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said.
A draft resolution will be circulated at the UN Security Council for ratification, she told the US Senate.
The announcement came a day after Iran made a deal with Turkey that would see nuclear material exchanged for enriched uranium in Turkey.
The deal was similar to one proposed by the West and its allies last year.
News of Iran’s deal with Turkey was coolly received by the US and its allies.
Mrs Clinton said on Tuesday that a number of unanswered questions remained about the deal.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on the world to support it but said that if Iran did not ship out the uranium within one month, as agreed, then it would be on its own.
‘Pressure on Iran’
"We have reached agreement on a strong draft with the co-operation of Russia and China," Mrs Clinton told the US Senate foreign relations committee after talks between the five permanent Security Council members – the US, UK, Russia, China and France – and Germany.
"We plan to circulate the draft resolution to the entire Security Council today," Mrs Clinton added.
The US and its Western allies believe Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon, but Iran denies this.
Mrs Clinton said she had spent Tuesday morning on the phone with her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, "finalising the resolution".
Details were not immediately released but the sanctions are expected to broaden economic penalties on Iranian officials and institutions, the Associated Press news agency reports.
Russia and China have previously resisted calls for a new round of sanctions.
Talking about the Turkish deal, Mrs Clinton accused Tehran of trying to deflect pressure from the major powers.
"We don’t believe it was any accident that Iran agreed to this declaration as we were preparing to move forward in New York," she said.
"The fact that we had Russia on board, we had China on board and that we were moving early this week, namely today, to share the text of that resolution, put pressure on Iran which they were trying to somehow dissipate."
owever, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said he was
encouraged by the fuel swap. His reaction suggested that world
powers discussing possible new U.N. sanctions against Iran may
part ways on how much weight to give Iran’s offer.
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