GENEVA, Oct. 7 (Xinhuanet) -- UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Friday he is delighted that the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize had been awarded to the UN nuclear watchdog and its head Mohamed ElBaradei.

    "The secretary-general congratulates him and the entire staff of the agency, past and present, on their contributions to global peace," Annan's spokesman said here in a statement.

    Annan is on a working visit to Switzerland.

    The spokesman said that the prize was a welcome reminder of the acute need to make progress in nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament at a time when weapons of mass destruction continued to pose a grave danger to the mankind as a whole.

    The Nobel committee announced earlier on Friday that the International Atomic Energy Agency and ElBaradei had been awarded the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts against nuclear proliferation. Enditem

    IAEA, chief win 2005 Nobel peace prize