Date:12/12/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/12/12/stories/2007121256731700.htm

International

N-arms in safe hands, says Pakistan

Nirupama Subramanian

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan asserted its nuclear weapons were in safe hands on Tuesday as it test-fired a cruise missile called Hatf 7.

This is third time this year that Pakistan has test fired the 700-km range missile, also called Babur, said to be indigenously developed. The missile, which is capable of carrying nuclear weapons, was tested in March, and then in July this year.

A military statement said the test-firing was successful and a “part of a continuous process of validating the design parameters” of the missile.

The Babur “has near-stealth capabilities, is a low-flying, terrain-hugging missile with high manoeuvrability, pin-point accuracy and radar avoidance features,” according to the statement from Inter-Services Public Relations.

Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, General Tariq Majid, who was present at the test, said Pakistan’s nuclear weapons “are very safe and secure.”

Referring to reports in the U.S. media that Pakistan’s strategic assets could fall into the hands of Islamists and others suggesting the Bush Administration was mulling a plan to unilaterally secure them, the General said Pakistan remained alert to “such threats” and was fully capable of handling them.

“There is a very strong security system in place, which can ward off all threats, internal as well as external. Though no responsible state in the world can contemplate such an impossible operation, yet if someone did create such a scenario…Pakistan would meet the challenge strongly,” he was quoted as saying by ISPR.