The envoy spoke to reporters after attending an informal meeting of the 15-member council at the French UN mission to review a draft statement on Iran's nuclear stance prepared by France and Britain.

Asked when the Council planned to hold its first formal session on the Iranian nuclear crisis since it received an assessment report on the Iranian program from Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog, de Rivero said: "Friday".

Qatar's UN envoy Abdulaziz al-Nasser confirmed that the council would meet informally on Thursday and formally on Friday.

De Rivero stressed however that a discussion of the draft statement currently being thrashed out by the council's five permanent members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- would not take place "before next week".

"We had a very good meeting. We discussed the elements that France and the UK put down," Britain's UN envoy Emyr Jones Parry said. "These are now being referred to capitals and I expect we will have an early meeting later this week to see what the reactions are with a view to making progress on the text."

"I felt there was a very constructive discussion," Japan's UN ambassador Kenzo Oshima said.

"We'll probably get together informally Thursday afternoon," US ambassador John Bolton said, adding that the so-called Perm-5 would have a fifth informal session Wednesday.

The non-binding statement, drafted by Britain and France with the backing of Washington, would be the first stage of a graduated response that could, in the view of the three Western powers, ultimately lead to punitive measures such as economic and diplomatic sanctions.

But Russia and China, which have close economic and energy ties with Tehran, have made it clear that they oppose sanctions and indicated that the IAEA should keep the lead role in handling the case.

"The objectives are the same but (the problem is) what is the best approach to achieve these objectives," Chinese ambassador Wang Guangya said after the Perm-5 meeting early Tuesday.

"What we want is to leave room and sufficient time for all diplomatic efforts to play ... we shouldn't close all the doors for diplomatic activities," he added.

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