NEW YORK — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday that his government had new proposals designed to resolve an international dispute over his country's controversial nuclear-development program. But he declined to offer details either of the initiative or when it might be presented.

He is scheduled to address the U.N. General Assembly tomorrow, for the second time in four days.

Ahmadinejad mentioned the new Iranian initiative at a breakfast with about a dozen U.S. newspaper editors and reporters.

During the hourlong meeting, the Iranian leader reiterated his country's long-held insistence that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes and complained that the globe's existing atomic-weapons states are trying to maintain a monopoly on nuclear technology.

"There is some kind of nuclear apartheid," he said.

During a meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the fringes of the U.N. summit, Ahmadinejad appeared to raise the stakes in the nuclear controversy when he reportedly offered to transfer nuclear know-how to other Muslim countries. A report of the Erdogan meeting was carried by Iran's official news agency, IRNA.

When asked at the meeting with journalists about sharing nuclear technology, Ahmadinejad made no commitment.

His comments to U.S. journalists came several hours before a meeting at the United Nations between his foreign minister and counterparts from three European Union countries failed to make any headway on negotiating an end to Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

The EU-Iran talks broke down last month after Iran announced it would end a freeze on all nuclear activities.

The United States, convinced that Iran wants to build nuclear weapons, is pressing other countries to help bring Tehran before the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions if it fails to return to the negotiating table. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. panel set up to guard against the spread of nuclear weapons, is scheduled to discuss the issue when it meets Monday in Vienna, Austria.

With key nations including Russia, China and India reluctant to take punitive measures against Tehran, it is unlikely that the U.S. will force a vote for referral at Monday's meeting of the agency's 35-member state governing board. Still, U.S. officials appeared confident they could bring enough pressure to force Iran's hand.

Patrick Clawson, deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Iran had indicated it might propose expanding the participants in the talks beyond Britain, France and Germany. With Bush administration backing, the three have tried to negotiate a package of economic, political and security incentives that Tehran would receive in return for giving up efforts to produce nuclear fuel.

"They've offered hints that they'd like to see the negotiation be expanded to include developing countries," Clawson said.

"Our aim all the way through ... was to keep the matter out of the Security Council," British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told reporters after the EU-Iran meeting. "What we're going to do is to listen carefully to what the president is going to say on Saturday afternoon and we'll take it from there."