The International Atomic Energy Agency and its chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, jointly won the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize today for their efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Dr ElBaradei, a 63-year-old Egyptian lawyer who clashed bitterly with Washington before the Iraq war, said the award would be a "shot in the arm" for the agency as it grapples with nuclear standoffs in Iran and North Korea.

The Nobel Committee said it was recognising the IAEA and its director-general for "their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way."

In Vienna, where the agency is based, Dr ElBaradei told a press conference: "The award sends a very strong message: ’Keep doing what you are doing -- be impartial, act with integrity’, and that is what we intend to do.

"The advantage of having this recognition today, it will strengthen my resolve. The fact that there is overwhelming public support for our work definitely will help to resolve some of the major outstanding issues we are facing today, including North Korea, including Iran and nuclear disarmament.

"It is a responsibility but it is also a shot in the arm."

The decision to give the prize to the agency, and especially to its chief, was seen by some commentators as a slap in the face for President Bush, whose administration was frustrated by the IAEA's failure to find any evidence of a nuclear weapon programme in Iraq before the US-led invasion.

The US was also angered by the publication, just ten days before Mr Bush's re-election, of IAEA correspondence revealing that 340 tonnes of high explosives had gone missing in Iraq under American noses.

But Ole Danbolt Mjoes, the Nobel Committee chairman, denied that prize was a veiled criticism of Washington. "This is not a kick in the legs to any country," he said.

And Dr ElBaradei also played down any suggestion that the decision was politically inspired and said that he had received a congratulatory telephone call from Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State.

"I don’t see it as a critique of the US," he said. "We had a disagreement before the Iraq war - honest disagreement. We could have been wrong; they could have been right."

The Nobel Committee said that Dr ElBaradei and the agency he heads should be recognised for addressing one of the greatest dangers facing the world.

"At a time when the threat of nuclear arms is again increasing, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to underline that this threat must be met through the broadest possible international co-operation. This principle finds its clearest expression today in the work of the IAEA and its director-general," the committee said.

"In the nuclear non-proliferation regime, it is the IAEA which controls that nuclear energy is not misused for military purposes, and the director-general has stood out as an unafraid advocate of new measures to strengthen that regime.

"At a time when disarmament efforts appear deadlocked, when there is a danger that nuclear arms will spread both to states and to terrorist groups, and when nuclear power again appears to be playing an increasingly significant role, IAEA’s work is of incalculable importance."

Dr ElBaradei has headed the UN nuclear watchdog since 1997, serving two four-year terms although the US had tried to block his reappointment for a third. Diplomats said the Nobel award would bolster his personal authority and profile at the head of the agency.

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