New York:The US and Germany have said that a tightening of sanctions against Iran's nuclear programme would be adopted by the UN Security Council later this week.

"The expectations is that we will be able to move on fairly quickly" on a draft resolution outlining the measures, US Ambassador Alejandro Wolff told reporters Tuesday.

Wolff said a number of closed-door discussions among council members were to take place Tuesday and Wednesday and adoption of the draft was expected.

Wolff also said the council would allow Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak before the Security Council votes. "There would be ample time for him to attend."

Ahmadinejad and his entourage have already been granted visas by the US government but there was no indication of when Ahmadinejad would travel to New York to attend the council meeting.

German UN Ambassador Thomas Matussek said that Ahmadinejad represents a sovereign nation that is a UN member and the floor in the council will be open to him.

The new-targeted sanctions stem from Iran's failure to meet a February deadline to halt uranium enrichment.

Matussek said the draft resolution is aimed at prodding Iran to return to the negotiating table, rather than strongly punishing Iran for defying demands to suspend its nuclear activities. 

"Nothing in the text will hit very hard but it points to negotiations," Matussek told reporters, referring to clauses in the draft that encourage the Iranian government to suspend its uranium conversion and return to negotiations in order to avoid yet another round of sanctions.

"We hope that the Security Council will adopt it swiftly and implement it incrementally in order not to risk the cohesion of the six (nations negotiating the draft)," Matussek said.

The 15-nation council planned to meet Wednesday for a formal discussion of the sanctions that were agreed to last week by the five veto-wielding permanent members the US, Russia, China, France and Britain and Germany.