'N-deal should be conducive to non-proliferation'

With US President George W Bush signing the Indo-US civilian nuclear energy legislation into a law, China said on Tuesday that the historic pact should be beneficial for maintaining the principles and efficacy of global non-proliferation regime.

"We have taken note of the news. We believe that the nuclear cooperation between various parties of peaceful use of nuclear energy should be conducive to the maintenance of the principles and efficacy of the international non-proliferation mechanism," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters when asked to comment on Bush's signing of the nuclear bill into law on Monday.

The official Xinhua news agency described India as an 'ally' of the US in its report from Washington.

'US President George W Bush signed the nuclear cooperation deal with India into law on Monday to allow the US to provide nuclear reactors and fuel to the ally for the first time in 30 years', it said.

Bush made the move after the Congress approved the 'controversial' nuclear cooperation deal between the US and India on December 9, it said.

Further, it noted that the deal 'would lift a decades-long ban on nuclear sales to India, in part, because of the country's refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty'.

'The arrangement requires that the fuel shipments to be for civilian use only, yet opponents of the bill said that the deliveries of nuclear fuel would free up India's domestic stocks of nuclear materials for its weapons programme', the official Chinese news agency commented.