U.S. says seeks unified policy with Europe on Russia

By Tabassum Zakaria

ROME (Reuters) - The United States wants to ensure a unified front with Europe on future policy towards Moscow, a senior U.S. official said on Monday.

"The Russians obviously are already paying something of a price for their activities. You've seen the European Union come together on a relatively united basis," the official said on condition of anonymity.

The United States wanted "to make certain that we've got everybody knitted up" in developing a common policy in the West with regard to Russia and Georgia, the official said.

The comments were made as Vice President Dick Cheney visited Italy to shore up support for Georgia after Moscow sent tanks and troops into Georgian territory last month to defeat Tbilisi's attempt to retake the pro-Russian breakaway South Ossetia region by force.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who meets Cheney on Tuesday, is a U.S. ally. But Berlusconi also considers Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to be a close friend and Italy depends on imports of Russian gas.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in Moscow on Monday to try to shore up compliance on a French-brokered peace deal, said Russia had agreed to leave Georgia proper within a month.

He said if Russia implements its latest Georgia pullout deal there would be no reason for EU-Russia talks not to go ahead in October.

Since the Soviet Union's collapse, Russia has benefited economically from its growing ties with the West by attracting outside investment and from the rise in oil prices.

Its actions on Georgia threaten to unravel some of those gains, the U.S. official said.

The U.S. official said there were concerns that Russia's military response in Georgia was motivated by other issues, like the aspirations of Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO.

The official also cited a U.S. missile defence system to be based in Poland and the Czech Republic, which Moscow opposes.

The United States supports Georgia and Ukraine joining the security alliance and Russia's actions may have encouraged other more reluctant countries to back membership, the official said.

"I think if anything, what's happened in Georgia has probably broadened support within the alliance for the proposition that eventually they ought to be members of NATO," the U.S. official said.

The Georgia crisis has caused U.S.-Russian ties to deteriorate further after relations cooled in recent years over Washington's criticism of Russia as backsliding on democracy and Moscow's anger over the expansion of NATO closer to its borders.

"We are still very interested in having normal relations with Russia, and that hasn't changed," the U.S. official said.