UNITED NATIONS – As Iran ratchets up its rhetoric amid sagging diplomatic negotiations on its nuclear weapons and in the wake of a North Korean missile test on Sunday, the United Nations began a month-long meeting yesterday on nuclear proliferation. The talks are expected to include many speeches but yield no significant agreements.

Germany’s foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, met yesterday with his Iranian counterpart, Kamal Kharrazi, in an attempt to salvage diplomatic negotiations that ended in a stalemate in London last week. Mr. Fischer described yesterday’s meeting at the United Nations as a “frank and open discussion” – diplomatic code that indicated disagreement. He also hinted for the first time that the European Union might agree to forgo diplomacy and refer the matter to the Security Council.

After Friday’s London meeting produced no accord, the Iranian religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei upped the ante in negotiations with Britain, Germany, and France. The three European countries are attempting to stop Iran from renewing its uranium enrichment efforts, but the mullahs maintain they have a right to do so.

“The shameless arrogance and rudeness has gone so far that it has given rise to such comments that Iran does not need nuclear technology,” Mr. Khamenei said in a televised speech on Sunday. “This is none of your business,” he added, speaking to the three European countries and America.

Officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency who attended yesterday’s Turtle Bay meeting of the signatories to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty seemed unfazed by the Iranian bolstering. Mr. Kharrazi’s speech here today is expected to echo Mr. Khamenei’s proclamations.

“There’s a lot of difference between what they say and [how] they act,” IAEA’s director, Mohammed el-Baradei, told The New York Sun in an interview. He urged both the Europeans and Iranians to “stick it out” despite their grievances. “If we go through confrontation, we go into a Pandora’s box, and I’m not sure anybody can win,” he said.

Washington, which publicly supports negotiations by the Europeans, has in the past expressed doubts about Tehran’s ability to fulfill its promises. American officials have urged that the matter be referred to the Security Council, where sanctions could be imposed against Iran. Until now, the Europeans have stuck by their diplomacy.

Yesterday, however, Mr. Fischer hinted for the first time that the European Union might shift its tactics if Tehran continues to refer to its enrichment program as a “right” under the NPT.

“The Iranians know themselves what the alternative would be in this case, namely a call to the Security Council,” he told reporters. Nevertheless, Mr. Fischer added, talks are preferable “in order to avoid a new nuclear armaments race in the Middle East.”

Over the weekend, North Korea tested a midrange missile with a capacity to carry a nuclear warhead. The muscle flexing by Pyongyang, as well as Iran’s demands, were at the center of yesterday’s initial gathering. The 188 NPT signatories meet every five years. Many nations, as well as Secretary-General Annan and Mr. el-Baradei, call for imposing new universal nonproliferation restrictions.

Mr. el-Baradei called yesterday for a moratorium on uranium enrichment and plutonium separation. “We need to give ourselves a time-out, maybe a year or two,” he said in the interview. The global ban will prevent the proliferation of technology that is “a stone’s throw from having nuclear weapons,” he said.

Both America and Japan, a nation with staunch anti-nuclear policies, have opposed the universal moratorium idea, as both have recently begun building expensive plants that would be frozen under Mr. el-Baradei’s proposal. The two nations also oppose the equation between their proliferation records and those of nations like Iran or North Korea.

The standoff is expected to prevent any resolution at the end of the month long meeting. “I am quite pessimistic” any agreement would be reached, Russian ambassador Andrey Denisov told the Sun.