Pakistan has hit back at the US, after President Donald Trump accused India’s neighbouring nation of conducting secret nuclear tests underground.
Speaking to CBS News, a senior Pakistani security official said that it was “not the first to carry out nuclear tests and will not be the first to resume them”.
The official added that Pakistan continues to maintain a “unilateral moratorium” on nuclear testing and remains committed to restrained even though it is not a signatory to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
Trump made the remarks during an interview on CBS News’ 60 Minutes, where he suggested that countries like Russia, China, North Korea and Pakistan have been conducting secret nuclear tests underground, while the US has held back for over 30 years.
“We’re going to test because they test,” he said. “And certainly North Korea’s been testing. Pakistan’s been testing. They test way underground, where people don’t know what’s happening.” Trump’s remarks were the first by a sitting US president directly accusing Pakistan of continuing nuclear tests.
Apart from Pakistan, China too pushed back, saying Beijing had “always abided by its commitment to suspend nuclear testing”. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said that Beijing had “urged Washington to protect the global non-proliferation architecture”.
While North Korea remains the only nation to have tested a nuclear device since the 1990s, both Russia and China deny any secret tests.
Islamabad last carried out a nuclear test in 1998.