Rice gives Russia cold shoulder over Georgia

By Susan Cornwell - Analysis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two and a half years ago, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said U.S. ties with Russia were the best they had been for "quite some time."

Now she and her Russian counterpart are barely on speaking terms over Georgia, and foreign policy analysts are worried that the soured relations will curtail Washington's diplomatic clout around the world.

Rice, a career Soviet expert and Russian speaker, already had a prickly relationship with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov before war broke out between U.S. ally Georgia and Russia this month. But they had worked closely on issues such as Iran's nuclear program.

With U.S.-Russian ties deteriorating sharply over Georgia, however, U.S. officials said on Friday Rice had not spoken to Lavrov for nearly two weeks -- since a ceasefire was negotiated that Washington accuses Russia of disobeying.

She has not visited Moscow either, but she went to Georgia to show support for beleaguered President Mikheil Saakashvili.

"There's no need to pick up the phone and talk to the Russians right now," said State Department spokesman Robert Wood. "Our position is very clear about what Russia needs to do. ... Russia needs to fulfill its ceasefire obligations."

The war in Georgia has driven U.S.-Russian relations to their lowest point since the Cold War. Tensions further escalated when the United States and Poland, amid the crisis, agreed to a missile defense deal Moscow had bitterly opposed.

Russia, ignoring all urgings and threats from the West, then recognized Georgia's rebel regions as independent states and accused U.S. officials of provoking the conflict.

In response, Washington appears to be stepping away from high-level contacts and linking bilateral relations to progress on this one divisive issue, analysts said.

'QUESTIONABLE STRATEGY'

But analysts warn that in such an intense crisis with Moscow, it is a mistake to give Russia the cold shoulder.

"This is a questionable strategy for the United States at a time when so much else on our agenda involves Russia," said Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations, in a Newsweek magazine column.

"We can't just freeze the Russians out," said Robert Hunter, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO. "The United States needs to be in charge of the diplomacy with its allies, and that means among other things talking to the Russians."

The U.S.-Russian relationship had soured before the conflict, despite pledges of broad strategic cooperation with Moscow during President George W. Bush's first term.

Even though Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates were Soviet experts, the administration was distracted by Iraq, said Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.