Pakistan Test Fires Shaheen III Nuclear-Capable Missile

March 10, 2015

Pakistan Test-Fires Nuclear Capable Ballistic Missile

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan test-fired a nuclear-capable ballistic missile on Monday, the military said, less than a week after the first high-level talks with arch-rivals India for nearly a year.

The military said the Shaheen III surface-to-surface missile had a range of 2,750 kilometers (1,700 miles) and can carry nuclear and conventional warheads.

"The test launch, with its impact point in the Arabian Sea, was aimed at validating various design and technical parameters of the weapon system at maximum range," the military said in a statement.

India and Pakistan — which have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947 — have routinely carried out missile tests since both demonstrated nuclear weapons capability in 1998.

Pakistan’s most recent missile test came last month with the launch of a low-flying, terrain-hugging cruise missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

Indian Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar visited Islamabad last week for talks with his Pakistani counterpart.

It was the first senior-level dialogue between the nuclear-armed rivals since their prime ministers met in New Delhi last May.

Relations between the two countries, always fraught, soured further last August amid a rise in clashes along their borders and a row over a Pakistani diplomat meeting Kashmiri separatists.