Pakistan’s military said a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead anywhere in India is ready for wartime use after troops successfully launched it yesterday for the first time during a field exercise.
The launch “validated the operational readiness of a strategic missile group equipped with the Shaheen II missile,” the military said.
The Shaheen II, also known as the Hatf VI, has previously been test-fired a number of times by scientists and engineers.
The army says the missile has a range of 2,000km, the longest of several missiles in Pakistan’s nuclear-capable arsenal. That is enough to hit targets anywhere in archrival India, as well as in Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia.
Navy Chief Admiral Muhammad Afzal Tahir congratulated those responsible for the exercise on the “successful launch and the accuracy of the missile at the target,” the military said in a statement.
Tahir said Pakistan could be proud of the “reliability of its nuclear deterrence” and that the country would further enhance its nuclear capability.
Pakistan became a declared nuclear power in 1998 by conducting nuclear tests in response to those carried out by India.
Meanwhile, leaders of Pakistan’s ruling coalition were to meet yesterday to finalize strategy for the restoration of judges dismissed by President Pervez Musharraf when he imposed emergency rule last year.
The reinstatement of the judges, including the former Supreme Court chief justice, would be a major challenge to Musharraf.
The restoration of the judges seen as hostile to Musharraf’s bid to stay in power was the main element of a coalition pact between the Pakistan People’s Party of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and the party of another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif.
Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto’s widower and political successor, agreed to restore about 60 judges, including Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, through a parliamentary resolution within 30 days of the formation of their coalition.
That deadline will pass by the end of this month.
If restored, some of the judges are expected to take up challenges to Musharraf’s October re-election by outgoing assembly members, which his critics say was unconstitutional.
Zardari and Sharif were due to meet to finalize a draft resolution before it is put to the National Assembly, parliament’s lower house, now dominated by Musharraf’s opponents, said Siddiqul Farooq, a spokesman for Sharif’s party.
“The resolution hopefully will be finalized in the meeting and it will be a major step towards implementing the Murree Accord in letter and spirit,” Farooq said, referring to the coalition pact agreed in the hill town of Murree last month.
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