The Spanish chairman of the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors has distributed a note to board members saying "the director general's term of office expires on 30 November 2005 ... the director general is available for a further term of office," code for saying he is a candidate, a diplomat told AFP in reading the text.

Another diplomat said that the United States, the largest contributor to the United Nations, supports the position of the Geneva group of top 10 contributors that heads of international organization should not serve more than two terms.

"This policy has nothing to do with the director general's qualifications. The United States thinks that he's done a very good job leading the agency at a very difficult time but it's simply a matter of principle and good governance," a Western official familiar with the US position said.

The Spanish statement said a new director general should be named no later than June 2005, in order to be approved at an IAEA general conference in September 2005.

ElBaradei, who is Egyptian, has been at the Vienna-based IAEA for two decades and has as director general since 1997 become a world figure campaigning for nuclear non-proliferation.

His agency is also at the center of determining the alleged nuclear weapon ambitions of the three countries US President George W. Bush has labeled an "axis of evil" -- Iran, North Korea, and Iraq when under the rule of now-deposed Saddam Hussein.

He is a former law professor from New York University and also a former Egyptian diplomat.

All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.