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Fri, Sep 5 07:44 AM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is likely to scrap a civilian nuclear pact with Russia soon as punishment for its war against Georgia last month, a U.S. official said on Thursday.
While the U.S. government has announced plans to give U.S. ally Georgia over $1 billion in reconstruction aid, it has yet to hit Moscow with any concrete sanctions for the military incursion deep into Georgian territory last month.
But the Bush administration is preparing to scuttle the civilian nuclear deal, which was intended to lift Cold War restrictions on trade and open up the U.S. nuclear market and Russia's uranium fields to companies from both countries.
"The civilian nuclear agreement is likely to be pulled, and soon," the U.S. official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"I don't expect this will be the last in terms of consequences for Russia," he added, but declined to speculate about what else the administration might do.
At the White House, spokesman Gordon Johndroe declined to comment on Thursday. But officials there said last week that withdrawing the civilian nuclear pact was under discussion.
The nuclear cooperation agreement was signed by the two countries in May and sent by President Bush to Congress, which can still disapprove of the pact.
Key U.S. lawmakers have said that the accord is probably dead anyway in the wake of Russia's short war last month with Georgia over the breakaway enclave of South Ossetia.
Russia has left troops in Georgia despite the internationally-negotiated cease-fire requiring them to be pulled back to pre-conflict levels. Moscow further angered the West by recognizing the "independence" of South Ossetia and another pro-Russian separatist enclave, Abkhazia.
The nuclear pact would have gone into force if Congress did not pass a joint resolution of disapproval or adjourned for the year before lawmakers had 90 legislative days to review it.
It now appears unlikely that Congress will be in session for the requisite 90 days of review this election year. But an announcement by Bush explicitly withdrawing the deal from Congress would send a signal that there are consequences to Moscow's actions in Georgia, U.S. officials say.
Some lawmakers were already troubled by the nuclear pact even before Russia and Georgia went to war last month. They said they did not trust Russia enough to expand nuclear cooperation because Russia had supplied fuel to Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant. Washington believes Iran harbors ambitions to build a nuclear bomb.
http://in.news.yahoo.com/137/20080905/362/twl-bush-likely-to-scrap-nuclear-deal-wi.html