United Nations ? The U.N. Security Council made its first move Wednesday to deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions, warning it to suspend its uranium enrichment activities and to cooperate with the U.N.’s nuclear agency.

The council called for the International Atomic Energy Agency to report within 30 days on Iran’s compliance, after which it will consider the matter again.

Wednesday’s statement, which was approved by all 15 council members, is not legally binding and makes no reference to potential consequences if Iran fails to meet its terms. But U.S. Ambassador John Bolton called it “the first major step in the Security Council to deal with Iran’s nearly 20-year-old clandestine nuclear weapons program.”

“It sends an unmistakable message to Iran that its efforts to deny the obvious fact of what it is doing are not going to be sufficient,” Bolton said.

The IAEA’s board had sent the case to the Security Council after Iran restarted its nuclear enrichment program earlier this year, and IAEA experts say it is poised to start operating a centrifuge cascade to enrich uranium that could be a technological milestone for producing weapons-grade fuel.

Iran insists all its activities are legal, and that it wants to develop technology for nuclear energy, not arms.

“Iran does not want nuclear weapons, nor does it want to pursue the development, stockpiling or production of nuclear weapons,” Iranian U.N. Ambassador Javad Zarif said Wednesday.

“Iran will want to cooperate with the international community,” he added. “But it does not accept pressure and intimidation.”

The Security Council statement came a day before a key meeting of foreign ministers from the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Germany aimed at laying out a unified long-term strategy for dealing with Iran. The British and French ambassadors described a gradual, incremental and reversible approach that would allow Iran room to suspend its nuclear research program gracefully, while making clear that it would face more serious measures if it did not.

But the Security Council’s wrangling over the first step foreshadows tougher fights ahead on what such measures might be. A leaked confidential letter from British political director John Sawers to his U.S. and European counterparts before a meeting earlier this month acknowledged that “we are not going to bring the Russians and Chinese to accept significant sanctions over the coming months, certainly not without further efforts to bring the Iranians around.”

The council’s 15 members agreed after three weeks of difficult talks that Iran should not be allowed to gain the ability to make a nuclear weapon. But Russia and China have insisted that there was not yet evidence to show that Iran posed a threat to international peace and security, which would open the door to future international sanctions or military action – measures which both countries oppose.