WASHINGTON, Feb 5: President George Bush will propose funding for the creation of an atomic energy partnership with Russia in his upcoming fiscal budget, according to the New York Times.

The proposal would involve having the United States and Russia provide nuclear reactor fuel to other countries for use in generating nuclear power, the newspaper reported on Saturday. The spent fuel would be taken back to prevent its use in weapons.

A White House spokeswoman declined to comment.

The report offered new details about an initiative the administration has said it is working on to create an international framework to deal with expanded use of nuclear power both at home and abroad.

The administration, in its fiscal budget to be released on Monday, is expected to call for spending $250 million on research to develop new ways to reprocess the nuclear fuel so that it would be difficult to use the plutonium in nuclear weapons.

Reprocessing, which separates uranium and plutonium from spent fuel so the elements could be used further, is a technology abandoned by the United States decades ago as a security risk.

Some in the administration see promise in new separation technology that would make it harder to use its plutonium byproduct in nuclear weapons.—Reuters