Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that if Iran fails to allow full inspections of a previously undisclosed nuclear site and fulfill other agreements struck in Geneva, new sanctions should be imposed, a State Department official said.

The official, briefing reporters traveling with Clinton in Moscow, said Medvedev said he expected Iran also to implement an agreement reached in principle in Geneva to ship its low- enriched uranium to Russia or face new sanctions.

Medvedev said in September in New York that new sanctions may be inevitable. Earlier today, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that any threat of sanctions at this stage is “counterproductive.”

For now, the U.S. and Russia are united in their focus on finding a diplomatic solution to the impasse with Iran over its nuclear program, the State Department official said.

“Our position is that at this stage all efforts should be made to support the negotiating process,” Lavrov said after his separate talks with Clinton. “Sanctions and the threat of pressure in the current situation are counterproductive in our view.”

Rallying Opinion

Clinton said that while new sanctions against Iran aren’t inevitable, “in the absence of significant progress and assurances that Iran isn’t pursuing nuclear weapons,” the U.S. will “be seeking to rally international opinion” in favor of imposing sanctions.

The U.S. delegation “didn’t ask for anything today” in the meeting with Lavrov, Clinton said. “We reviewed the situation and where it stood.”

The U.S. and its European allies are concerned that Iran is making headway on acquiring the capability to build a nuclear weapon. Iran told United Nations nuclear inspectors last month it is building an underground nuclear-fuel plant, a facility that the U.S., Britain and France said was a secret site.

During the Oct. 1 meeting near Geneva with the U.S., other members of the UN Security Council and Germany, Iran agreed to allow an inspection of the new enrichment facility outside Tehran. The country also agreed to meet with negotiators for the U.S. and other UN members later this month.

Uranium Enrichment

The U.S. and other powers have said they will wait until the end of the year before pushing for any new sanctions against Iran. Three rounds of Security Council sanctions have failed to halt Iran’s uranium enrichment.

U.S. officials welcomed Medvedev’s comments in New York last month that new sanctions may become inevitable. Still, Russia has long been cool to new penalties and it’s unclear what types of sanctions, if any, Russia would support.

“We should not overestimate how far it carries the Russians in our direction,” James Collins, U.S. ambassador to Russia from 1997-2001 and now an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, said of Medvedev’s September comment.

Lavrov said the international community has “a good chance” of success in negotiations with Iran.

During his meeting with Clinton, Lavrov made clear that Russia isn’t complacent about the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon, a U.S. official said.

The U.S. would decide to seek new sanctions if Iran doesn’t agree to implement the plan discussed in Geneva to send its low- enriched uranium stockpile to Russia and if it doesn’t allow inspectors full access to its nuclear sites, the official said.

Lavrov made clear to Clinton during the meeting that Russia was fully on board with the plan to take most of Iran’s low- enriched uranium out of the country and turn it into fuel for a Tehran medical research reactor, another U.S. official said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Janine Zacharia in Moscow at jzacharia@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 13, 2009 14:22 EDT