ustralia threatened Monday to withhold uranium for Russian nuclear reactors unless Moscow respects Georgia's sovereignty and withdraws its forces from the country.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has joined world leaders in calling on Russia to observe a cease-fire agreement that requires it to remove its military from the former Soviet state.

Smith warned Monday that a new agreement that would allow Australian uranium to be exported to fuel Russian power plants was at stake in the standoff.

"When the government comes to consider ratification of the Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement with the Russian Federation, we will take into account not just the merits of the agreement, but events which have occurred in Georgia and ongoing events in Georgia and the state of Australia's bilateral relationship with the Russian Federation," Smith told Parliament.

The agreement was signed last September and a routine examination by a parliamentary Treaties Committee began Monday. Smith has not said when the government might make a decision on whether to ratify the pact.

The agreement would allow Russia to use Australian uranium to achieve its goal of doubling Russian nuclear power capacity by 2020.

As with all of Australia's uranium customers, Russia would be barred from using the nuclear fuel for military purposes.

Treaties Committee Chairman Kelvin Thomson said Monday he had concerns that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would not honor the terms of the agreement.

"I don't know if you've looked on the TV into Vladimir Putin's eyes — he is one tough son of a gun and I don't think that he cares about what we think," Thomson, a government lawmaker, said at the committee hearing in Canberra.

"I think that we could supply uranium to him and if he changed his mind about the uses to which he was going to put it, I don't think we'd have any effective comeback at all," he said.

But the government's expert on nuclear issues, Australian Safeguards and Nonproliferation Office chief John Carlson, told the committee that Russia knew the supply of Australian uranium would end if the conditions were breached.

"There would be quite strong national interest considerations against Russia shooting itself in the foot in that way," Carlson said.

Australia, which holds almost 40 percent of the world's known uranium reserves, has had a restricted agreement to sell uranium to Russia since 1990.

That agreement only allows Russia to enrich the uranium for a third country and does not allow its use in Russian power plants.

On Aug. 7, Georgian forces attacked South Ossetia, hoping to retake the province which broke away from Georgia in the early 1990s. Russian forces repelled the offensive and pushed into Georgia. The two sides signed a cease-fire deal in mid-August, but Russia has ignored its requirement that all forces return to prewar positions.

Russia has faced isolation over its offensive in Georgia and stands alone in recognizing South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.