The UN Security Council on Friday agreed to allow Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak in defence of his nation's nuclear programme at a session to be held next week in New York, the council president said Friday.

Ahmadinejad requested to speak before the 15-nation council is to adopt a draft resolution tightening targeted sanctions against his controversial uranium enrichment programme. Iran refused to suspend the activities by a February deadline, triggering the fresh round of sanctions.

"We conveyed the request (by Ahmadinejad) and there was no objection to it" by Security Council members, said South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, the council president.

Ahmadinejad's request was made by Iran's mission to the UN in New York.

"I request that our delegation, headed by the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, be allowed to participate in the possible meeting, without the right to vote ... and make a statement before the vote," a letter signed by Iranian UN Ambassador Javad Zarif said.

The council plans to meet Wednesday to discuss the draft resolution on new sanctions against Iran for refusing repeated demands to suspend its uranium enrichment activities.

But Kumalo said the six countries that negotiated the draft wanted to move forward discussion of the new document to Tuesday instead of Wednesday, which he said may upset the 10 council members that did not take part in the negotiations.

"We are not a rubber stamp," Kumalo told reporters, expressing once again the unhappiness of the 10 countries that are non-permanent members of the council and who are often kept out of talks by the five permanent members.

Those 10 members had sent the draft back to their capitals for consideration and they would not be ready to discuss it before Wednesday.

The five veto-wielding permanent members - the US, Russia, China, Britain and France - and Germany negotiated the new draft resolution and handed it over to the 10 non-permanent members on Wednesday.

Kumalo said discussion of the new draft would take place next week, but he said no date had been fixed as to when the draft would be voted on.

Ahmedinejad wanted to attend a council meeting before the vote to defend Iran's right to civilian nuclear technology. Western nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) suspect Iran is hoping to manufacture nuclear weapons with its advanced uranium enrichment activities.

MI6 is involved in a race against time to prevent British diplomats kidnapped in Ethiopia being sold on to Al Qaeda terrorists.

Diplomatic and intelligence sources believe Osama Bin Laden's terror network had nothing to do with the abduction but is now attempting to get its hands on the five hostages.

A senior source told The Mail on Sunday Al Qaeda was prepared to offer a bounty to persuade the group behind the seizure to sell the prisoners.

"Al Qaeda have deep pockets and have a history of "buying" hostages taken by criminals and other groups particularly in Iraq,' the source said. "This abduction may have been opportunistic but we are worried Al Qaeda are making efforts to get involved."

The fear is Al Qaeda has identified the diplomats - who have not been officially named - as potentially high-value prisoners and wants to put them 'on trial'.

In the past, British hostages including engineer Ken Bigley and charity worker Margaret Hassan, seized by Islamic terrorists in Iraq, were forced to release video statements aimed at Tony Blair before their deaths were broadcast on the internet.

About ten British officials, thought to include an expert hostage negotiator, have been dispatched to Ethiopia to try to secure the group's release.

The hostages - three British men, an Anglo-Italian and a French woman - were on a tourist excursion to the remote Afar region of north-eastern Ethiopia when they were taken captive. Their Toyota Land Cruiser and Land Rover Discovery, which had diplomatic plates, were discovered riddled with bullet holes and grenade shrapnel. The 4x4s still contained the victims' luggage, as well as shoes and mobile phones.

Latest reports suggest the group was taken by rebel gunmen from the local Afar Revolutionary Democratic Union Front (ARDUF) and marched across the Ethiopian border into Eritrea.

The rebels want to draw world attention to the dispossession of their lands.

t the traditional Afar leader, Sultan Ali Mirha Hanfare, said: "If these people were being held by my people, I would know. Despite our enquiries, we still do not know where they are."

Meanwhile, Mahmouda Ahmed Gaas, leader of ARDUF until 1998, described how he had held Italian tourists in the searing heat of the Danakil Desert until their release was negotiated.

He said: "They suffered miserably. It was hellish for them of course. They had to live like us, like guerrillas, sleeping on the ground under a tree, eating goat's meat and rice. They all got dysentery and we had no medicine."