"They are working on an action plan already," ElBaradei, head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told reporters after meeting in Washington with US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.

He said the plan was "to clean up all the highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium that is still in the civilian cycle."

This represents 100 facilities in 40 countries, ElBaradei said.

HEU can be used to make an atom bomb but also as fuel in civilian research reactors.

Department of Energy officials had no comment on the plan.

ElBaradei, who met Wednesday with US President George W. Bush, said "the president agreed" it was "unacceptable" that countries are still using HEU in civilian programs.

He said they had also agreed the time had come to "change many of the rules" in order to strengthen the fight against nuclear proliferation that is the mission of the IAEA.

ElBaradei had said Wednesday it did not matter if the HEU which countries possessed had come from Russia, the United States or other weapons powers.

"My suggestion to the president is that we need a good plan to clean up all this nuclear weapons useable material that is all over the place," ElBaradei said.

Asked if countries would accept recyling HEU to low enriched uraniumwhich is not a weapons risk, ElBaradei said Thursday: "I think that's why we need US, Russian and other leadership."

The IAEA is now overseeing a reactor in Libya from which highly enriched uranium is taken to Russia, which is to return it as low enriched uranium, which cannot be used in a bomb.

ElBaradei said he thinks most people "understand the security concern and if you get the same results with an LEU research reactor, I don't think anyone will" complain.

"It's a question of identifying what needs to be done and who will be in touch with each country on which issues," ElBaradei said.

In another front in the non-proliferation fight, ElBaradei said he and Bush had "agreed on the need to revisit the whole export control regime ... as a result of A.Q. Khan associates and the lesson we have learned from that."

Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, confessed in January to running an international black market ring that shared sensitive nuclear technology with Iran, Libya and North Korea for more than a decade.

ElBaradei also wants to eliminate the danger that nuclear fuel declared for peaceful uses could also be used to make atomic bombs by having a multilateral body make the fuel, rather than letting individual states do it.

The United States has however stressed setting a "moratorium or cut-off date" after which countries that have not mastered the fuel cycle would stop trying to do this.

WAR.WIRE