Major powers were at odds on Wednesday on how to make legally binding demands that Iran suspend uranium enrichment and stop work on a reactor that can produce plutonium, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said.

US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton. The Security Council stalled on calling for a halt to Israel's deadly strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon, as it mulled a lasting solution centered on the disarming of the militant Lebanese militia.[AFP]

In informal talks, Russia and China raised questions about a U.N. Security Council resolution that Western nations want adopted. Their concerns were similar to disputes over a North Korea resolution last week on how to make their demands mandatory, participants at the closed-door talks said.

"The good news is everybody had instructions," Bolton told reporters. "The bad news is they didn't all agree.

Bolton said that while there was agreement to make mandatory the suspension of uranium enrichment "what we have not reached agreement on is the precise formulation of the words that will do that."

The draft under consideration is an updated version of one introduced by the United States, Britain and France in early May but never adopted. It includes threats of sanctions to curb Iran's nuclear program, which the West fears is a prelude to bomb-making.

The text will also set a date, not yet determined but possibly by the end of August, for Iran to comply.

The meetings, which resume on Thursday, included Germany and the five Security Council members with veto power -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China, the main negotiators on Iran.

At a July 12 meeting in Paris, all six countries agreed Iran had given no indication it would engage seriously on a commercial and technological incentive package offered to Tehran if it were willing to suspend its nuclear programs.

The six also agreed to adopt a Security Council resolution that would make the suspension mandatory.

If Iran still refused, they said then, "We will work for adoption of measures under Article 41 of Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter," which calls for sanctions.

To Germany's U.N. Ambassador Thomas Matussek, this meant using Chapter 7 in the current and any follow-up resolution, he said on Wednesday.

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin refused to comment on Chapter 7 on Wednesday but said, "There must be no misunderstanding about the seriousness of the international community ... and the seriousness of the need to dispel all doubts about the nature of the Iranian nuclear program."

During the debate over North Korea's missile launches last week, China forced council members to work around Chapter 7 and other language and changing words, such as "decide," to "require."

Chapter 7 makes a resolution legally binding while the North Korean resolution, according to some experts, was politically but not legally binding.

Chapter 7 also provides for military action as well as sanctions, providing a specific resolution is adopted to that end. Recalling the invasion of Iraq, China and Russia fear the United States and its allies would enforce the resolution without council authorization.

Tehran, which maintains its program is to produce energy only, has shown no sign of suspending its nuclear work and said it would not reply to the incentive offer until August 22.

Iran is building a heavy-water nuclear reactor at Arak, 120 miles (190 km) southwest of Tehran. Western nations are concerned the plant's plutonium by-product could be used to produce nuclear warheads.

Spent fuel can be processed to extract weapons-grade plutonium. The plutonium can also be mixed with enriched uranium to produce fuel for a special type of nuclear reactor.