ElBaradei put his hat into the ring for a third term as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) earlier this month despite opposition from the United States and possibly other top UN funding states.

His current four-year term expires on November 30 next year, and US officials have said 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 organizations 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.

But ElBaradei, who is supported by IAEA board member China as well as the G-77 group of developing nations, which includes many non-aligned states on the board, may get a boost in October as he is an apparent favorite to win the Nobel Peace Prize after his work in monitoring nuclear activities in hot spots Iran, Iran, North Korea and Libya.

And Japan, which is a member of the Geneva group of 10 and a board member, was not closing the door on a third term for the 61-year-old Egyptian.

"Of course, we can make an exception to the rule" of only two terms, Japanese IAEA ambassador Yukio Takasu told reporters.

An IAEA spokesman said the new 35-nation board board of governors, which was elected last week at an IAEA general conference to a one-year term, "decided (Monday) procedures for the appointment of a new director general."

Applications for candidacies will close by December 31 and the board will seek to have the new director general named by a meeting in June 2005, in order to be formally elected at the next IAEA general conference in September

The director's general's new term would begin on December 1, 2005.

ElBaradei has been at the Vienna-based IAEA for two decades and since taking over as director general in 1997 he has become a world figure campaigning for nuclear non-proliferation.

He is a former law professor from New York University and once served as an Egyptian diplomat.

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