Pakistan has rejected US President Donald Trump’s claims that the country has conducted recent nuclear weapons tests and said it remains committed to a moratorium on such activities.
“Pakistan was not the first to conduct nuclear tests and will not be the first to resume nuclear tests,” CBS News quoted a senior Pakistani security official as saying in response to Trump’s remarks during the 60 Minutes interview.
The official emphasized that Islamabad continues to abide by the “unilateral moratorium on nuclear tests” that has been in place since its last test in 1998.
Trump accuses several countries of testing
In the interview, Trump claimed that Russia, China, Pakistan and North Korea have all tested nuclear weapons.
“Russian tests and Chinese tests, but they don’t talk about it,” Trump said, defending his recent announcement that the US would conduct nuclear weapons tests.
“We will test because they are testing and others are testing. And certainly North Korea has tested. Pakistan has tested,” he added.
However, North Korea is the only country known to have conducted a nuclear detonation since the 1990s. The last confirmed nuclear test in China was in 1996 and in Pakistan in 1998.
China also denies the allegations
Beijing was the first of the accused countries to respond. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning rejected Trump’s claim, saying China has “always supported a nuclear self-defense strategy and abided by its commitment to suspend nuclear tests.”
She added that China hoped the US would “take concrete measures to safeguard the international nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime and maintain global strategic balance and stability.”
USA, China and CTBT
Both the US and China have signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which bans all nuclear test explosions.
Pakistan, while not a signatory, says it supports the “aims and purposes of the treaty” and says it “will not be the first to resume nuclear weapons testing in South Asia.”
Russia, which ratified the treaty in 2000, withdrew its ratification two years ago under President Vladimir Putin, although it has not announced plans to resume nuclear detonations.
While Russia has stepped up tests of its nuclear weapons systems, it has not indicated any plans to resume nuclear detonations.
Read also | Trump’s nuclear test talk could reignite a dangerous arms race
The US clarifies the nature of the planned tests
Amid Trump’s comments, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, a Trump appointee, clarified that the tests under consideration did not involve actual nuclear explosions.
“I think the tests we’re talking about now are systemic tests. They’re not nuclear explosions,” Wright told Fox News.
“They’re what we call ‘non-critical detonations,’ so you test all the other parts of the nuclear weapon to make sure they provide the appropriate geometry and that they set up the nuclear detonation,” he explained.
Read also | Former US Vice President Dick Cheney, Architect of Iraq War, Dies at 84 total test ban CTrightt arsenal
