Pakistan test-fired a short-range ballistic missile on Friday which it said was capable of carrying nuclear warheads, but arch-rival India dismissed the test as "nothing special."
The Pakistani military named the rocket as the "indigenously developed" surface-to-surface ballistic missile Hatf-III Ghaznavi.
"This was the second test of the Ghaznavi missile, which is capable of carrying all types of warheads accurately up to a range of 290km," it said in a statement.
Pakistan said the timing of the test, the first in a series planned for the next few days, was based on its own missile defense needs and had nothing to do with developments in the region.
"The timing of the tests reflect Pakistan's determination not to engage in a tit-for-tat syndrome to other tests in the region," the military said. "Pakistan will maintain the pace of its own missile development program and conducts tests as per its technical needs."
Tension with nuclear-armed India has eased somewhat this year after the neighboring countries moved close to war last year. Progress toward peace talks has stalled, partly because of renewed violence in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.
India dismissed the test as nothing new. "There is nothing special about it," Defense Minister George Fernandes told the Press Trust of India news agency.
US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said initial reactions suggested the test "doesn't seem to have heightened tensions in the region" and he repeated Washington's advice that both countries restrain their missile programs and not deploy operational nuclear-armed ballistic missiles.
"We've also encouraged them to begin a dialogue on confidence-building measures that could reduce the likelihood that such weapons would ever be used," he told reporters.
The test came as Pakistani Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali visited Washington, where he has been asking for US help to redress what Pakistan sees as an imbalance in conventional arms in the subcontinent.
US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is also due in Pakistan on Saturday and will visit neighboring Afghanistan in a trip mainly focused on the US war on terror.
Former General Talat Masood, a Pakistani defense analyst, said the timing of the test was not related to either visit, or to the short-term ebbs and flows of the relationship with India.
"Pakistan and India both have elaborate programs of missile development and this testing is part of that program," he said. "It may come at a time when ... the relationship may be hostile or it may be normal, but this program, I think, will continue."
Both countries conducted a series of nuclear tests in 1998.
Pakistan and India engaged in what were seen as tit-for-tat missile tests last March, when Islamabad tested the short-range Abdali (Hatf-II) missile.
India test-fired the nuclear-capable Prtihvi missile in April and then a short-range surface-to-air missile in June.
The Pakistan military said the latest test showed that "all design parameters have been successfully validated."
It said prior notification of the test had been given to neighboring countries.
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