MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal
New Delhi: India has responded to US President Donald Trump’s recent claim that Pakistan is “testing nuclear weapons”, framing the remarks within Islamabad’s history of covert nuclear activity and proliferation.
At a weekly media briefing on Friday, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said Pakistan’s “secret and illegal nuclear activities” align with its longstanding record of smuggling, export control violations, covert partnerships, and the A.Q. Khan network. “India has always drawn the world’s attention to these aspects of Pakistan’s record,” he said. “It is in this context that we have taken note of President Trump’s remarks regarding Pakistan’s nuclear tests.”
Trump’s comments were made during a television interview on CBS’s ‘60 Minutes’ earlier this week, where he listed Pakistan among several countries allegedly conducting nuclear tests. “North Korea has been testing. Pakistan has been testing … Russia’s testing, and China’s testing, but they don’t talk about it,” he said.
The US president has directed the Pentagon to resume nuclear weapons testing, stating that he does not want America to be “the only country that does not do so”. In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he had instructed the Department of War to begin testing “on an equal basis” with other nations.
Amid growing concern, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright clarified that Washington does not intend to conduct live nuclear detonations. “These are not nuclear explosions. These are what we call non-critical explosions,” Wright told Fox News, explaining that only components would be tested using advanced simulations.
Pakistan has yet to issue an official response. However, CBS News quoted a senior Pakistani security official as saying, “Pakistan was not the first to carry out nuclear tests and will not be the first to resume nuclear tests.”
Pakistan’s last known nuclear tests were conducted in 1998, shortly after India’s Pokhran-II tests. Both countries have since upheld a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing and remain outside the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.