PERTH, Australia – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday that a proposed U.S.-India nuclear energy deal is good for both countries and for global efforts to reduce the spread of atomic technology and greenhouse gas emissions.

In her first public comments on the agreement since India's government won a confidence vote that paves its way forward, Rice said the Bush administration would press U.S. lawmakers to approve the agreement in the coming months.

“I think we can make a very good case that this is not just a landmark deal but a positive landmark deal,” she told reporters aboard her plane as she flew from an Asian security conference in Singapore to Australia.

“It's certainly our hope that we can get through all the processes and get this done in the Congress, and we are going to work very expeditiously toward that goal,” Rice said.

The pact would end more than three decades of nuclear isolation for India by opening its civilian reactors to international inspections in exchange for the nuclear fuel and technology. Previously, India has been denied such outside help because of its refusal to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and its testing of atomic weapons.

But Rice said India has a good record of not spreading its nuclear technology and that safeguards are built into the deal. She added that its approval would help India meet its huge demand for energy without using oil, coal and other petroleum products.

“India is a country that has tremendously growing demand for energy,” she said. “It is a country that, if it tries to meet that demand through carbon-based sources for energy, is going to contribute dramatically to the continued growth of greenhouse gas emissions.”

India imports about 75 percent of its oil, and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has argued the country needs the nuclear deal to power its financial growth and lift hundreds of millions of its 1.1 billion citizens out of poverty.

On Tuesday, Singh was forced to call a confidence vote after communist political parties withdrew their support for his government this month to protest the agreement, fearing it would draw India closer to the United States.

Though Singh made enemies in his bid to push ahead with the nuclear deal, he had the backing of India's powerful business community and won the vote.

In addition to congressional approval, the deal requires India to strike separate agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency as well as the Nuclear Suppliers Group of countries that export nuclear material.

Rice made her comments on a flight to Perth, Australia, with Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, a Perth native. Australia holds 40 percent of the world's known uranium reserves and is a key member of the suppliers group, where support for the deal is crucial.

Smith said his government would consider the agreement in a positive light, but would not bend a ban on exporting uranium to India because the nation has not signed the nonproliferation treaty.

“We regard the US-India civil nuclear agreement as separate from that and we don't regard our policy on exporting uranium as preventing us from joining a consensus in the Nuclear Suppliers Group on supporting the arrangement,” he said.

“We will give very careful consideration to the strategic implications of the agreement,” Smith said. “We will be looking at the arrangement with a positive and constructive frame of mind.”