UNITED NATIONS – A Turtle Bay conference on the most prominent treaty governing the spread of nuclear arms will end today with a whimper. Participants were unable to coalesce on even the most basic agreement.

Considering the high stakes, “this is the most acute failure in the history of the NPT,” a former American nuclear negotiator, Thomas Graham, said in reference to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Mr. Graham, who led the American mission at a similar conference in 1995, added that he could not remember an atmosphere that was “more negative” than the one at the conference that closes today.

The conference, which convenes every five years to update the treaty, began May 3, as the prospect of Iran and North Korea becoming nuclear powers crystallized in the eyes of many: Pyongyang tested a missile, and Tehran insisted on its right to pursue enrichment technology at a London negotiation with European representatives.

Since then, America was unable to convince participants at the NPT review conference to mention those two countries by name. Instead, Iran, with strong support from Egypt, tried to make Israel the main topic at the conference. As a result, diplomats and conference observers said yesterday, the month-long meeting will end today likely without a final statement, let alone a significant agreement.

The conference “did not collapse,” Egypt’s Assistant Foreign Minister for International Policy, Ahmed Fathalla, said. “We hope we can have a very positive statement,” he told The New York Sun. But he insisted that the application of past resolutions was “the main task of the conference.”

He hinted that America contributed significantly to the conference’s failure, a view shared by many European diplomats and representatives of nongovernmental organizations. Washington refused to sign on to past obligations undertaken by the Clinton administration. The Bush administration, for example, opposes the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which President Clinton attempted to ratify, although he failed to do so.

“They don’t want to be bound” by such agreements, Mr. Graham said, referring to his Washington successors representing the Bush administration. He also pointed to Iran and Egypt as contributing to the stalemate, since both countries, among other issues, “pushed for a tough language on Israel.”

Egypt highlighted specific passages in resolutions passed by the NPT gatherings in 1995 and 2000, which called for a nuclear-free Middle East. Egypt demanded specific mention of Israel therein, and practically on any other issue in the conference. Israel, along with India and Pakistan, is not a signatory to the treaty. North Korea withdrew last year.

At the same time, Egypt joined Iran in resisting American attempts to warn against Iranian violations. As the speeches and negotiations in New York began, Iran brought its diplomatic nuclear negotiations with Britain, France, and Germany to the brink of collapse. It later pulled back, promising a return to diplomacy on Wednesday, as the Turtle Bay conference was about to close. North Korea, too, raised its nuclear rhetoric after test-firing a short-range missile into the Sea of Japan on May 1.

“I don’t think those are coincidences,” a top American negotiator told the Sun yesterday. Tehran and Pyongyang wanted it to “be known that they are not going to be beholden to events” in New York, said the diplomat, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the NPT talks.

With an eye to the two remaining “axis of evil” states, President Bush called on March 7 for a stronger NPT, the diplomat noted. “We cannot allow rogue states that violate their commitments and defy the international community to undermine the NPT’s fundamental role in strengthening international security,” Mr. Bush said.

An Israeli diplomat, who asked for anonymity because Israel is not an NPT member, noted the “absurdity” of the insistence of Egypt and others to castigate Israel, when “they know very well that the real nuclear danger in the region is from Iran.”