A bitter row over Israel's assumed nuclear arsenal looked set to loom large over the annual general conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency which began Monday.

The conference, which brings together all 151 member states of the IAEA. is slated to last until Friday and will tackle a long list of issues ranging from the election of member states to the board of governors, the 2011 budget, nuclear security and technical coperation.

But it is an Arab-backed resolution on Israeli's nuclear capabilities, which will be one of the last items on the agenda, that looks set to dominate the debate, as it has done in previous years.

The resolution, which is non-binding and therefore purely symbolic, calls on the Jewish state to foreswear nuclear weapons and sign up to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

It is one of the last items on the agenda and will likely be debated on Thursday.

The United States and its western allies are concerned that putting the resolution -- which was passed with a very narrow majority last year -- to a vote again this year could jeopardise newly-launched Middle East peace talks.

And it would also not help to persuade Israel to attend a conference in 2012 to establish a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, they argue.

Opening the general conference, last year's conference president and New Zealand's ambassador to the IAEA, Jennifer Macmillan, said it was "important ... that we do not hinder the process or create roadblocks along the way that will make realising the dream of a peaceful Middle East free from nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction more difficult."

But IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano touched only briefly on the issue in his opening address.

"I hope that the proposed 2012 conference will take place with the participation of all relevant states and that it will lead to a productive outcome," he said.

When the resolution was passed with a very narrow majority last year, Amano was instructed to "work with member states towards achieving" the goal of persuading Israel to join the NPT.

And Amano provided an update of his efforts in an 81-page report published at the beginning of September.

But Arab states quickly dismissed Amano's findings as "weak and disappointing" and criticized the report for being "devoid of any substance and not up to the typical level of the agency's reporting."

They accused the IAEA, which has long been investigating both Iran and Syria for alleged illicit nuclear activity, of using "double standards" when dealing with Israel.