"No country has spoken in favor of referring (Seoul) to the Security Council," Choi said. The council could impose sanctions over South Korean experiments that produced small amounts of weapons-grade plutonium and almost weapons-grade uranium.

Choi said the 35-nation board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would decide on the matter Friday.

IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said Canadian ambassador Ingrid Hall, the chair of the IAEA board, was working on a statement on South Korea which would almost certainly avoid mentioning the Security Council "to reflect the consensus of what she heard" in Thursday's speeches.

The issue of South Korea, a close US ally, has taken on a special dimension since the United States wants Iran to be taken to the Security Council for what Washington says is a covert nuclear weapons program.

Diplomats said the United States had been willing for South Korea to be taken to the council as a matter of principle, in order to not set a precedent for Iran to avoid possible sanctions.

US charge d'affaires George Glass told the board: "The United States heartily welcomes and commends the ROK (Republic of Korea) on its cooperation" in working with the IAEA.

Glass said the ROK was showing the way "for resolving outstanding safeguards issues, cooperation with the agency, not confrontation and delay, transparency not obfuscation," in a clear dig at Iran.

Choi led a 12-member team to Vienna to lobby against a referral to the council, after a month of hard lobbying by South Korean diplomats in Vienna.

South Korea in August admitted to the IAEA that its scientists had conducted secret experiments in separating plutonium in the 1980s.

Seoul also reported laser enrichment of uranium "in 2000 by scientists at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) in Daejeon" that refined uranium to an average level of 10.2 percent and up to the highly enriched level 77 percent, which is close to weapons-grade, according to an IAEA report on November 11.

But Seoul said the tests were conducted without government authorization and had stopped.

The revelations have embarassed both the United States and South Korea which are trying to pressure North Korea to end its nuclear weapons drive.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei had Thursday expressed "serious concern" at past failures by South Korea to report activities linked to potential weapons programmes, but stopped short of saying that the country should be reported to the UN Security Council for them.

"The quantities of nuclear material involved have not been significant. Nonetheless given the nature of the activities, the failure of ROK (the Republic of Korea) to report these activities in accordance with its safeguards agreements is... a matter of serious concern," ElBaradei said in a speech to the IAEA board.

Choi told the board: "Some concerns have been expressed that even reporting failures should be referred to the UN Security Council if only for information purposes.

"But issues of technical nature can and should be dealt with within the IAEA," he said.

Malaysian ambassador Hussein Haniff had told AFP earlier this month: "What is the basis to refer South Korea to the Security Council as it has been cooperating with the IAEA."

"We in the IAEA only refer to the Security Council when we can not do anything else, like in the case of North Korea," Haniff said.

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