An expert on disarmament and non-proliferation, the bespectacled Amano has represented Japan on the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-member board of governors since September 2005, acting as board chairman in his first year.

Seen as the Western states' candidate in the race for the director general's seat, Amano has been criticised by some for his lack of charisma.

But pointing to his country's own experience with nuclear destruction in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Amano, who was born two years after the end of World War II, vowed to combat nuclear proliferation.

"As a national coming from Japan, I'll do my utmost to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons," the 62-year-old diplomat said after the board elected him as director general on Thursday.

"In order to do that, solidarity of all the member states countries from North, from South, from East and West is absolutely necessary," he said.

Amano is aware that the IAEA's activities can have important political significance, especially with regards to countries like Iran, Syria and North Korea, even if it is essentially a technical organisation.

"Whoever the next director general is, what he does or says will have political implications," he told AFP in an interview in February.

He said at the time that he did not expect the standoff over Iran's controversial nuclear programme to be resolved anytime soon.

"The Iran dossier has been with IAEA for years. The roots of it date back decades. So, I'm not expecting a quick fix," he said.

But a new US president, Barack Obama, and new director general at the IAEA "will make some difference, I hope," he said.

In addition to Iran, Amano will also have to steer the agency's investigation in Syria, where Israeli warplanes bombed a suspected nuclear reactor in September 2007.

Remaining diplomatic ahead of his election, he said there was no indication that Syria was engaged in "undeclared (nuclear) activities going back decades," unlike Iran.

But he insisted on continued cooperation from Damascus, saying that "otherwise, the IAEA cannot clarify the situation, which is not good, either for Syria, or the IAEA or the world."

Amano is due to succeed Mohamed ElBaradei in December after the agency's General Conference give its green light in September.

ElBaradei, who received the Nobel Peace Prize along with the IAEA in 2005, had decided against running for a fourth four-year term as head of the watchdog.

Amano graduated from Tokyo University's law faculty before joining the foreign ministry in 1972, where he established himself as a disarmament expert.

Named as director of the ministry's nuclear energy division in 1993, he was then appointed director-general for arms control and scientific affairs before moving on to the disarmament, nonproliferation and science department in 2004.

The Japanese diplomat also took part in negotiations for major arms control instruments, including the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) reviews, the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) and others agreements on ballistic missiles, biological and conventional weapons.

Born May 9, 1947, Amano, who is married, speaks fluent Japanese, French and English.

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