The UN atomic agency’s board of governors on Wednesday approved giving Japanese director general Yukiya Amano a new four-year term without even resorting to a vote.

The UN atomic agency's board of governors on Wednesday approved giving Japanese director general Yukiya Amano a new four-year term without even resorting to a vote, diplomats said.

In 2009, the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-member board had needed six rounds of voting to select Amano for his first term, with developing countries worried he would be too pro-Western.

Amano's highest-profile challenge in his second term is expected to be Iran, amid international concerns that Tehran wants to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian atomic program.

However, Iran reiterates that as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and to further nuclear disarmament, it has the right to a civilian nuclear program.

The Islamic Republic the IAEA's believes that claims, set out in a major report in November 2011, are based on information from Zionist and Western spy agencies -- information that it has not been shown -- and that it has never sought to develop nuclear weapons.

On Iran, a new chief inspector, Tero Varjoranta of Finland, is due to start in October, replacing retiring Belgian Herman Nackaerts -- described in leaked US cables as "not bad".

The Vienna-based IAEA, founded in 1957, also aims to promote the peaceful uses of nuclear technology including energy.