"Nuclear power is not only dirty, dangerous and economically insane, it also generates the very materials that can be used for nuclear bombs," Jan Vande Putte, Greenpeace's international energy expert, said

As the IAEA's 138-member general conference got under way, a score of Greenpeace activists unrolled a 60-metre (yard) long banner outside the conference hall with the text "IAEA=nuclear power=nuclear bombs."

They tried peacefully to enter the conference hall to meet with newly reappointed IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei but were turned away.

ElBaradei said in opening the conference, "It is obvious that nuclear power is re-emerging in a way that few would have predicted a few years ago."

The IAEA promotes the peaceful use of nuclear energy, which ElBaradei has said is a non-polluting alternative to the fossil fuels that contribute to global warming.

Greenpeace said it also "calls on the world's governments to engage in a diplomatic process in the Middle East, instead of escalating the confrontation with Iran."

The IAEA has found Iran guilty of non-compliance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and is threatening to take Tehran before the UN Security Council.

Arab states at the IAEA are lobbying for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East and castigate Israel, which is believed to have nuclear weapons, for not signing the NPT.

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