The United States, Britain, France and Germany plan to meet Wednesday in New York to discuss Iran's counterproposal and their response, the newspaper reported.

Iran responded Tuesday to a set of incentives offered by five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany, but did not agree to suspend the enrichment of uranium by the end of the month.

"They can either take up the very generous offer that the five permanent members and Germany have extended to them, and if they do, there's a possibility of a different relationship with the United States and others," Bolton was quoted by Washington Post as saying.

"But if they don't, we've also made it clear that their unwillingness to give up their pursuit of nuclear weapons will result in our efforts in the Security Council to obtain economic sanctions against them," he said.

On their part, Iranian officials said they were offering a "new formula" to resolve the nuclear crisis, but did not release any details of the proposal. Nor did Western diplomats.

Iran said it would not accept any preconditions for negotiations over the package of incentives. And the West continued to insist that there would be no discussion of the incentives package until Iran suspended enrichment, the paper said.

The United States has accused Iran of secretly developing nuclear weapons under a civilian front, a charge categorically denied by Tehran which says that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

The Security Council adopted a resolution last month urging Tehran to suspend by Aug. 31 all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development, or face prospect of sanctions.