WASHINGTON, DC, USA (AFP) — US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reaffirmed yesterday that she would retire after next year’s election, saying she was physically tired from the “merry-go-round” of public life.

Clinton, in an interview with the BBC, said that “I love what I’m doing” and that she was in good health, thanks in part to exercise and yoga. But she admitted to fatigue as she jets around the world as the top US diplomat.

“I am very interested in spending time with my friends and my family and not being on the merry-go-round all the time,” Clinton said in the interview, according to a State Department transcript.

That “is one of the reasons why I have decided that I will move on and return to private life at the end of what will be a very intense period of activity and work in the next 18 months”, Clinton said.

Clinton, 63, has been in the public eye almost without interruption since the late 1970s as first lady of Arkansas, first lady of the United States, a US senator from New York and in her latest job.

Clinton narrowly lost the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2008 to then senator Barack Obama but has repeatedly insisted that she works well with him and has no interest in another bid for the White House.

Clinton praised the Obama administration’s record, saying that many decisions by previous president George W Bush “undermined America’s strength at home and abroad”.

“What I am personally committed to doing is moving on a very steady path toward restoring America’s influence and leadership,” Clinton said.

She said that she still hears applause from audiences around the world when she mentions Obama, who is seeking a second and final term in November 2012.

“I think there’s still a very good feeling about what the president and what this administration are trying to do,” she said.