Pakistan yesterday test-fired a medium-range, nuclear-capable missile, the second such test in less than a week, the army said.
The army said it successfully fired off the Hatf-4 missile, also known as the Shaheen 1, in the early morning. The missile has a range of 700km, meaning it can hit most major targets in India.
"The test is part of the ongoing series of tests of Pakistan's indigenous missile systems," the army said in a statement, adding that: "In a spirit of confidence building, Pakistan had given prior notification of the tests to its neighbors."
In New Delhi, the Indian Defense Ministry spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment. But Pakistani army spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan said the test launch should not effect Indian-Pakistani relations.
"These tests are on going. This will have no impact on the situation in the region," he said.
The test was the second in less than a week. Pakistan said after the first launch on Friday of the short-range Hatf-2 Ghaznavi that it was in the middle of a series of such tests. Sultan said India had been told of each of the launches beforehand.
Friday's test was the first in Pakistan since March, but Islamabad insists the missile tests have nothing to do with simmering tensions with India.
The two countries appeared headed for peace talks a few months ago, and the silos were silent while they resumed diplomatic ties and restored bus links.
On April 18, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee raised hopes in the region with a surprise call for peace with Pakistan, saying he was extending a "hand of friendship" to his bitter rival.
The two countries appeared eager to discuss even the flashpoint issue of Kashmir, the Hima-layan region split between the two, which both claim in its entirety. The state has been the source of two of the three wars Pakistan and India have fought since 1947.
But negotiations never materialized and Pakistani and Indian leaders have recently traded accusations and insults.
Indian and Pakistani officials at the UN General Assembly last month engaged in their most bitter public sparring in years.
India's UN ambassador, Vijay Nambiar, accused Pakistan of engaging in a "diplomacy of abuse and hate."
Vajpayee later acknowledged the "peace process has suffered a setback," while Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan accused the Indian leader of being "full of negativity."
Pakistan and India have used weapons tests in the past to send a message to each other.
In 1998, the countries conducted tit-for-tat nuclear tests, earning years of sanctions. They nearly went to war last year after an attack on India's parliament that New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-backed Islamic militants.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
RSS