Her proposal came a day after the Security Council approved a heavily compromised statement criticizing the Iranian nuclear program. Previously, she had said sanctions were a possibility but that it was premature to discuss them.

Her proposal was described to reporters in a briefing aboard her plane by a senior State Department official, and she did not comment directly on her proposal during a news conference after the 3 1/2 -hour meeting Thursday.

Russia and China bluntly declared Thursday that they had no interest in imposing sanctions of any sort or in taking any further action against Iran, though both countries did express concern about the nuclear program. Russian and Chinese officials said they wanted to refer the issue back to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Dai Bingguo, China's vice minister of foreign affairs, offered a thinly veiled criticism of the war in Iraq when he said: ''The Chinese side feels there has already been enough turmoil in the Middle East. We don't need any more turmoil.''

The Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said, ''Russia believes that the sole solution for this problem will be based on the work of the IAEA.''

American officials say they believe Iran is unlikely to budge from its confrontational position unless it is offered ''in addition to carrots some sticks,'' the senior official traveling with Rice said Thursday evening. ''Iran needs to know there will be consequences if it continues to hold out.''

But the same opposition that forced the United States to accept a weaker Security Council statement than it had wanted seems likely to make it difficult to impose sanctions or other actions against Iran to persuade it to back down.

Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, speaking at a disarmament conference Thursday in Geneva, described the Security Council action as ''political maneuvering by some Western countries'' and ''an abuse of international mechanisms.”