WASHINGTON, March 18: The United States is working on an "action plan" to get countries worldwide to stop using highly enriched uranium , which can be the raw material for nuclear weapons, in civilian programmes, UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei said on Thursday.

"They are working on an action plan already," Mr ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told reporters after meeting US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.

He said the plan was "to clean up all the highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium that is still in the civilian cycle". This represents 100 facilities in 40 countries, Mr ElBaradei said.

Highly enriched uranium can be used to make an atom bomb but also as fuel in civilian research reactors. Department of Energy officials had no comment on the plan.

Mr ElBaradei, who met US President George Bush on Wednesday, said "the president agreed" it was "unacceptable" that countries are still using HEU in civilian programmes.

He said they had also agreed the time had come to "change many of the rules" in order to strengthen the fight against nuclear proliferation that is the mission of the IAEA.

The IAEA chief had said on Wednesday it did not matter if the HEU which countries possessed had come from Russia, the United States or other weapons powers. "My suggestion to the president is that we need a good plan to clean up all this nuclear weapons usable material that is all over the place," Mr ElBaradei said.

Asked if countries would accept recycling HEU to low enriched uranium (LEU) which is not a weapons risk, Mr ElBaradei said: "I think that's why we need US, Russian and other leadership."

The IAEA is now overseeing a reactor in Libya from which highly enriched uranium is taken to Russia, which is to return it as low enriched uranium, which cannot be used in a bomb.

Mr ElBaradei said he thinks most people "understand the security concern and if you get the same results with an LEU research reactor, I don't think anyone will" complain.

"It's a question of identifying what needs to be done and who will be in touch with each country on which issues," Mr ElBaradei said. In another front in the non-proliferation fight, the IAEA head said he and Mr Bush had "agreed on the need to revisit the whole export control regime ... as a result of A.Q. Khan associates and the lesson we have learned from that".

Mr ElBaradei also wants to eliminate the danger that nuclear fuel declared for peaceful uses could also be used to make atomic bombs by having a multilateral body make the fuel, rather than letting individual states do it. -AFP