Pakistan gives army nuclear-capable missile](http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040221/325/emlf9.html)
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan has taken delivery of a short-range nuclear-capable ballistic missile, according to a military statement.
The “indigenously produced” surface-to-surface solid-fuel missile Hatf-III Ghaznavi was delivered to the Army Strategic Force Command at a ceremony attended by President Pervez Musharraf, it said on Saturday.
It quoted Musharraf as saying that missile tests over the last four years and the delivery of systems to the military demonstrated his government’s resolve to “consolidate and strengthen” Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent.
Pakistan’s nuclear programme has under come under close international scrutiny since the “father” of the country’s atom bomb confessed publicly to having passed nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency has described the role of Pakistan’s Abdul Qadeer Khan as the “tip of an iceberg” in a massive international nuclear trade.
“Pakistan’s nuclear capability is for the sole purpose of deterrence of aggression against Pakistan and for the defence of our sovereignty,” the statement quoted Musharraf as saying.
“He assured the world that the (proliferation) network had been uprooted within Pakistan,” it added.
Pakistan says its weapons programme is solely in response to that of its nuclear-armed arch-rival India, with which it has fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947.
This month the two countries’ foreign secretaries agreed on a roadmap for a peace process to resolve all outstanding issues including Kashmir, cause of two of their three wars.
The army statement said Hatf III had a range of 180 miles and had successfully been tested in 2002 and 2003.
“It now forms an integral component of Pakistan’s operational deterrence systems, which also include Shaheen series and Ghauri intermediate-range missiles,” it added.
Pakistan’s military already has the Hatf-IV missile, known as the Shaheen One, with a range of 750 km (466 miles) and capable of carrying all types of warheads and the Hatf V Ghauri missile, which has a range of up to 2,300 km (1,440 miles).