AUSTRALIA should not ratify a treaty to sell uranium to Russia, a Labor-led committee has recommended.

Former prime minister John Howard and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed the uranium deal, worth $1 billion a year, at the APEC meeting a year ago.

Russia insists it will use the uranium for civilian nuclear power use and not to make nuclear weapons either in Russia or in another country.

Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith has expressed support for the sales.

But parliament's joint standing committee on treaties today tabled a report opposing the sales.

Copies of the report, which was tabled in the Senate today, have not yet become available.

And no government member of the committee spoke in the early stages of the debate on it.

However several coalition senators spoke enthusiastically of the proposed sale, urging the Rudd Government to proceed with it.

West Australian Greens Senator Scott Ludlam condemned the treaty, saying there was no guarantee Australian uranium would not be sent to a reactor Russia is building in Iran.

Senator Ludlam said there was also no guarantee the new nuclear facility under construction in Tehran will be devoted solely to peaceful uses of uranium.