UN Secretary General Kofi Annan will take part in the meeting on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly, along with the foreign ministers from Australia, Britain, Chile, Indonesia, Norway, Romania and South Africa, the sources said.

The countries are part of the "Seven Nations Initiative" created around Norway in September 2005 after the international community failed to agree on ways to revive nuclear disarmament measures at the World Summit in New York.

The issue of nuclear disarmament was not even mentioned in the summit's final communique.

That setback came after the failure of a May 2005 meeting on the Non-Proliferation Treaty to strengthen action to halt the spread of nuclear weapons.

The seven governments have since been seeking ways to counter the spread of nuclear arms and Norway's foreign minister, Jonas Gahr-Store, is due to present a status report to his six colleagues here on Friday, a Norwegian official told AFP.

The meeting is not expected to produce any formal statement or documents, however, he said.

The Seven Nation gathering comes at a time when the major powers are locked in a standoff with Iran over its suspected program to develop nuclear weapons.

The United States will press its allies at a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday to press ahead with sanctions against Iran over its failure to comply with a UN resolution requiring it to suspend the enrichment of uranium.

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