VIENNA, June 13: The governing board of the UN nuclear watchdog unanimously approved a third term for Mohamed ElBaradei as the agency’s chief on Monday after Washington gave up its efforts to oust him. “The board approved the reappointment of Dr ElBaradei by consensus,” Melissa Fleming, an International Atomic Energy Agency spokesman, told reporters gathered outside the closed-door board meeting.

The United States lost the battle to depose Mr ElBaradei, but it has not given up its fight against Iran’s nuclear programme.

“The US has taken the most graceful way out of this situation,” a Western diplomat said before the IAEA board meeting. “It has decided to back ElBaradei in exchange for what it hopes will be a tougher stance on Iran,” the diplomat said.

Washington had said it opposed the reappointment of the 62-year-old Egyptian, who has run the IAEA since 1997, because it believes UN agency heads should have only two terms. But U.N. diplomats say the real reason is that the U.S. believed he was soft on Iraq and Iran.

Diplomats at the Vienna-based IAEA denied Mr ElBaradei had cut a deal with the Americans to win their support for another four-year term when the 35 nations on the IAEA board voted.

TOUGH REPORT ON IRAN: The next major item on the agenda of the week-long meeting will be a speech by ElBaradei’s deputy, Pierre Goldschmidt, who will inform the board about progress in the IAEA’s two-year probe of Iran.