A team of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency has been conducting the first UN inspection of Iraq's nuclear power and research plants for more than a year.

The five-member team, which arrived in Baghdad on Friday, have the task of ensuring that Iraq's nuclear stocks are not used for military purposes.

"We are here to perform routine physical inventory checking for nuclear material," said Egyptian team leader Ahmad Abuzahra.

It is the first time any inspection team has gone to Iraq since Baghdad cancelled its co-operation with UN weapons monitors (Unscom) after US and UK air strikes in December 1998.

The team includes nuclear experts from Egypt, Russia and Europe - a deliberate mix to satisfy the Iraqis, who say the US and Britain are biased against them.

The Vienna-based agency has stressed that its mission has no connection with the UN weapons inspection programme, which remains barred from Iraq.

The inspection comes under the terms of the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of which Iraq is a signatory, and which requires annual inspections of declared nuclear material.

Sealed uranium

The team, which is expected to remain in Iraq for only a few days, will inspect the materials left under seal in a warehouse when the IAEA and Unscom monitors left the country.

"There's about 1.8 tonnes of low-enriched uranium still left in the country and quite a lot of natural uranium," IAEA spokesman David Kyd told the BBC.

"We've got to check that it's all there and accounted for," he said.

The material cannot be used to make bombs in its current state.

Baghdad was close to producing a nuclear weapon before the Gulf War and the disarmament programme that followed.

'Revolting episode'

The debate about whether UN inspectors will return to Iraq was further clouded when the UN Security Council failed to agree on who will head the body replacing the now-disbanded Unscom..

Russia, China and France vetoed the appointment of Swedish diplomat Rolf Ekeus, who was Secretary-General Kofi Annan's choice for the job, because of his previous role with Unscom.

An Iraqi newspaper on Friday called Mr Ekeus' nomination a "revolting episode" in the history of the UN.

Baghdad resented the activities of the old UN commission from the time Mr Ekeus was appointed after the 1991 Gulf War.

It says it has now fully disarmed and won't accept any UN weapons inspectors unless economic sanctions are lifted.