Iran has for the first time expressed its support for the re-election of International Atomic Energy Agency Director Mohamed Baradei, hailing what it said was a "consensus" against the United States. "We hope that he is elected again because there is a consensus about him and America has been isolated," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters. Since February 2003, Baradei has been leading a probe of Iran's nuclear program, and Tehran was subsequently forced to acknowledged it had hidden its sensitive activities from the UN's nuclear watchdog for close to two decades. Baradei, 62, has said the "jury is still out" on whether Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons, resisting pressure from the United States which insists the country has been using an atomic energy drive as a cover for weapons development.