The United States will tell Mohamed El Baradei it is prepared to drop its opposition to his bid for a third term as head of the UN nuclear watchdog, but will set conditions, diplomats said today.
US and European officials have revealed that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will offer support for El Baradei's candidacy as director-general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) when she meets him on tomorrow.
"The US will support El Baradei but it wants some things in return," a European diplomat told Reuters, adding these issues involved Iran and the general fight against nuclear arms proliferation. The diplomat did not elaborate.
IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky confirmed that El Baradei had been invited to Washington but declined to give details.
"He's been invited by Rice to discuss a number of important non-proliferation matters that will come up at next week's (IAEA) board of governors meeting," Gwozdecky said.
Asked if a third term for El Baradei and Iran's nuclear programme would be discussed, he said: "In all likelihood."
The 62-year-old Egyptian lawyer has run the IAEA since 1997. He fell out with the Americans over what they saw as soft-pedalling on the atomic programmes of Iraq and Iran.
El Baradei was due to arrive in Washington this evening. He is scheduled to meet Rice and Undersecretary of State for Arms Control Robert Joseph tomorrow, the IAEA said.
Joseph is successor to John Bolton, the US administration's nominee for ambassador to the United Nations and El Baradei's most vocal US critic.
The IAEA's 35-nation board of governors begins its quarterly meeting on Monday. One of the main items on the agenda is the issue of a third term for El Baradei, which Washington opposed, arguing that heads of UN agencies should serve no more than two terms.
UN diplomats say the real reasons were El Baradei's refusal to accept US allegations that pre-war Iraq had revived its nuclear weapons programme and his opposition to US demands that the IAEA board report Iran to the UN Security Council for hiding sensitive nuclear activities from the agency.
For months, the United States has been the only country on the board actively opposing El Baradei. Several diplomats said some of El Baradei's recent decisions would win favour with Washington, though an IAEA official denied El Baradei was deliberately courting the Americans.
"El Baradei does not pander to any country's agenda ... and remains impartial," the official said on condition of anonymity.