UNITED NATIONS — In a role reversal, a top Bush administration envoy launched face-to-face negotiations with his North Korean counterpart yesterday while the United Nations announced that it would suspend operations in the country.

There were indications, however, that the suspension of the U.N. Development Program’s North Korean projects had not yet taken effect yesterday and that the agency was seeking a quick resumption of its operations.

In New York, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill met with his counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, for talks that are expected to continue today. Mr. Kim also met with former administration officials and attended a dinner last night with Mr. Hill at a Midtown hotel in what was seen as a new overture by Washington toward one of the two remaining members of the “axis of evil.”

The suspension of the UNDP’s North Korea program received the backing of a senior administration official. “We obviously have been watching this very carefully, and we support what the U.N. is doing,” Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told The New York Sun.

But he added that the talks between Messrs. Hill and Kim, the highest-level meetings between Washington and Pyongyang since President Bush took office, involve issues that “will stand on their own, and we expect further progress on North Korea.”

On Friday, the administrator of the UNDP, Kemal Dervis, wrote to the North Korean ambassador to the United Nations, Pak Gil Yon, that because Pyongyang had failed to abide by operational conditions the UNDP’s board of directors had imposed, the agency had “no choice but to suspend its operations” in North Korea.

The suspension was to take effect March 1, a date the UNDP board set in January after American officials exposed agency rules violations in its North Korean program. But in his letter to Mr. Pak, Mr. Dervis wrote, “Should circumstances change at a later date, we would be willing to reconsider this position.” And a spokesman for the UNDP, David Morrison, said yesterday that none of the eight foreign and 15 local employees of the agency had left North Korea yet.

In January, Secretary-General Ban ordered a system-wide audit of every U.N. agency. The first audit, his aides said later, would be of the programs in North Korea, where the World Food Program, the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, and other U.N. agencies operate, as does the UNDP.

But at least one senior U.N. official said the other U.N. humanitarian agencies operating in North Korea would continue their work in the country without coming under the type of scrutiny the UNDP has received.

John Holmes, the new undersecretary-general for the coordination of humanitarian affairs, told reporters that the suspension of UNDP operations was not expected to affect other agencies operating in North Korea, and that they would not be audited by the United Nations. “The problems are very specific to the UNDP,” he said.

U.N. officials and American diplomats were quick to correct Mr. Holmes, saying that all of the U.N. operations in North Korea will be examined. “Our expectation is that there will be an across-the-board audit of all programs,” a spokesman for the American mission to the United Nations, Richard Grenell, said.

In other diplomatic developments, the ambassadors to the United Nations from Germany and the five leading countries on the U.N. Security Council began negotiations yesterday on “elements” of a new resolution imposing stricter sanctions on Iran, following earlier consultations among Foreign Ministry officials from the six countries.

Travel restrictions the council imposed last year are expected to be tightened and become “more binding,” the German ambassador to the United Nations, Thomas Matussek, said. Other new measures will include restrictions on sales of a “more comprehensive list of material and equipment,” as well as further pressure “in the area of financial transfers,” he added.

It was not clear, however, that Russia and China would come to a quick agreement with America and Europe, even on such mild sanctions.

“All of us want to see a second Chapter 7 resolution passed by the Security Council in the shortest possible time,” Mr. Burns said, referring to a passage in the U.N. Charter that makes economic and diplomatic sanctions mandatory for all U.N. member states. “We just now need to agree with all the other members of the council on what those … sanctions should be.”

Still, the Iranians need to know “that that offer to negotiate is still on the table,” he said.