Mohamed Elbaradei

The United Nations' chief nuclear watchdog provided a singularly bleak vision of a world "in disarray" Saturday, warning that the most imminent threat is not a new nation joining the nuclear club, but deadly material falling into the hands of extremists.

The chief of the world's nuclear weapons watchdog organization considers five years of U.S. and international efforts to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions a failure, as Tehran moves ever closer to obtaining the means to develop weapons of mass destruction. The United Nations Security Council has imposed three sets of sanctions to try to get Iran to halt uranium enrichment and other activities, while the United States and Europe have offered economic and security incentives.

In a fresh sign of easing tensions, North Korean officials Friday invited the chief of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency to visit Pyongyang next month to develop plans aimed at dismantling the nation's nuclear weapons program, officials said here.

The head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency said Thursday that Iran was operating only several hundred centrifuges at its uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, despite its claims to have activated 3,000. Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Iran's nuclear program was a concern but discounted its claims of a major advance in uranium enrichment, a process the U.N. demands Iran suspend or face increasing sanctions.

The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said he had not seen "any concrete evidence" that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program underway. "We have seen in the past that certain procurements have not been reported to us, certain experiments," Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency told CNN.

The head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency said Monday that the inquiry into Iran's nuclear case was not closed, as the country's president proclaimed to the United Nations last month, and called it regrettable that Iran continued to enrich uranium despite the Security Council's demand to stop the process.

United Nations atomic energy chief Mohamed ElBaradei urged the international community Thursday to steer away from threats of sanctions against Iran, saying the country's nuclear program was not "an imminent threat" and that the time had come to "lower the pitch" of debate. ElBaradei's remarks at a forum in Doha, the capital of Qatar, came at a sensitive moment in the discussions over Iran, as the United States and other members of the U.N. Security Council calculate their next steps.

As the head of the U.N. nuclear monitoring agency arrived in Iran on Saturday, the country's president declared that it had reported the existence of a new nuclear site earlier than required. Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is in Tehran to arrange an inspection of the uranium enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom. The revelation that Iran has been building the nuclear plant has heightened the concern of the United States and many of its allies, which suspect that Tehran is using a civilian nuclear program as a cover for developing weapons-making capability.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei will fly from Vienna to Washington this week to try to win support from the Bush administration, diplomats said. ElBaradei will meet with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the new undersecretary of State for arms control, Robert G. Joseph, the diplomats said. ElBaradei fell out with the U.S. over what it saw as soft treatment of Iraq and Iran's atomic programs. But the Washington Post reported that the U.S.

The Bush administration said Thursday that it was prepared to support a third term for International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, reversing a call for him to step down. ElBaradei, who has run the IAEA since 1997, is now likely to be unanimously approved by the 35 member nations at a board meeting that starts Monday. Differences over Iran and Iraq, where ElBaradei supported extended weapons inspections, were behind a U.S.