Updated on Thursday, July 02, 2009, 20:52 IST

Vienna, July 02: The world's top nuclear watchdog chose Japan's Yukiya Amano as its next head today and he touched on the devastation US atom bombs wreaked on his country in pledging to do his utmost to prevent the spread of nuclear arms.

The decision by the 35-nation International Atomic Energy Agency board ended a tug of war on who should succeed Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, who saw his agency vaulted into prominence during a high-profile 12-year tenure.

North Korea left the non-proliferation fold to develop a nuclear weapons programme on ElBaradei's watch and his agency later launched inconclusive probes on suspicions that those to nations were interested in developing nuclear weapons.

Industrialised nations backed Amano, whom they viewed as a low-profile technocrat uninterested in leaving a political footstep on the agency; developing countries supported his rival, South Africa's Abdul Samad Minty, considered ready to challenge the US and other nuclear power countries on issues such as disarmament.

An initial session in March ended inconclusively and today's meeting went down to the wire, with Amano winning only in the fourth round.

That and the fact that Amano barely eked out his victory, just clearing the two-thirds majority needed, reflected a continuing divide between the two camps. The divisions have served as an obstacle in one of its key tasks -- probing nations suspected of secret, possibly weapons-related, nuclear activities.

Bureau Report