Over the next four days, the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-member board is scheduled to discuss a wide range of topics, including its annual budget; the election of a successor to director general Mohamed ElBaradei, who is stepping down in November after 12 years in office.

It will also look into the agency's latest reports on the deadlocked probes into the alleged illicit nuclear activities in Iran and Syria.

But the Iranian dossier in particular has taken on added urgency given the landslide re-election of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the weekend.

The world has been closely watching the election for any signs of a shift in policy after four years of anti-Western and anti-Israeli rhetoric from Ahmadinejad amid the nuclear standoff.

But Ahmadinejad has vowed to continue on the same path in his next mandate.

The United Statss has cast doubt on the validity of the poll, while European powers have condemned the ensuing police crackdown on opposition protesters.

Analysts suggest that Ahmadinejad's re-election could isolate Iran which is under three sets of UN sanctions over its nuclear programme, pursued doggedly during his first term.

According to the IAEA's latest report on Iran, the Islamic republic is still defying the UN Security Council and has so far amassed 1,339 kilogrammes of low-enriched uranium hexafluoride (UF6).

Estimates vary, but analysts calculate that between 1,000-1,700 kilogrammes of low-enriched uranium would be needed to convert it into highly-enriched uranium suitable to make a single atomic bomb.

In all, more than 7,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges were installed at the Natanz facility, up from over 5,000 at the time of the IAEA's last report in February, the watchdog said.

As of the end of May, 4,920 centrifuges were actively enriching uranium; 2,132 centrifuges were installed and undergoing dry-run tests; and a further 169 machines installed, but not spinning.

The Security Council has ordered Iran to suspend all enrichment related activities, until the IAEA has been able to verify the exact nature of Tehran's controversial nuclear programme.

Western powers fear that Iran wants to build an atomic bomb, but Tehran insists it merely aims to produce civilian nuclear energy.

Iran was refusing to allow more pervasive inspections, as allowed under the so-called Additional Protocol, and was stonewalling requests for access to "information, documentation, locations and individuals," the IAEA said.

In a separate report on Syria, the IAEA said its inspectors found uranium particles at a research reactor near Damascus that would not normally be expected there and had asked Syria to explain how they got there.

Inspectors had found "anthropogenic natural uranium particles in environmental samples taken in 2008 from the hot cells of the Miniature Neutron Source Reactor (MNSR) facility in Damascus," the report said.

It was not the type of uranium that would normally be expected to be found at this kind of reactor.

The IAEA has been investigating allegations of illicit nuclear work by Syria since last year.

The United States alleges that a remote desert site -- known alternatively as Dair Alzour or Al-Kibar -- was an undeclared nuclear reactor until it was bombed by Israeli planes in September 2007.

The IAEA has said that the building bore some of the characteristics of a nuclear facility and UN inspectors had also detected "significant" traces of man-made uranium at that site too, as yet unexplained by Damascus.

But it was too early to say whether the uranium particles at Dair Alzour were connected in any way to those found at the research reactor.

Syria has claimed the uranium at Dair Alzour came from the Israeli bombs, but the watchdog has more or less ruled out that interpretation.

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