AP, Islamabad: India rejected a proposal by Pakistan to include cruise missiles in a treaty the two countries finalised last week on giving each other advance information on planned ballistic missile tests, a Pakistani official said yesterday.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Naeem Khan said New Delhi was not aware at the time that Pakistan, like India, has cruise missiles.
Pakistan on Thursday test fired its first cruise missile, named Babur, and didn't give any prior information to India about it.
Khan said that in the talks last week in India, Pakistan's delegation proposed that cruise missiles should also be included.
“But the Indian side did not agree and insisted that only advance information be provided concerning ballistic missile tests,” Khan said.
“Clearly Pakistan has this capability and Pakistani scientists have been able to develop this indigenously and through sustained hard work”.
The 500-kilometre-range missile is capable of carrying nuclear and conventional warheads and can be fired from submarines, ships and aircraft, Pakistan officials say.
India and Pakistan, longtime rivals, have yet to sign the agreement that they finalised on August 6 in New Delhi.
The unsigned accord also provides for setting up a hotline between top foreign ministry officials on both sides by September to reduce the risk of an accidental nuclear war.
In 1998 India and Pakistan carried out underground nuclear tests. The two countries often carry out tit-for-tat missile tests.
Khan said India has never informed Pakistan of its tests of Brahmos missile, a supersonic cruise missile it has developed with Russian cooperation.
The Brahmos missile has a range of 290 km and it can carry up to 300 kg of conventional warheads.
Samar Mubarik Mand, the head of Pakistan's missile programme, told reporters after the successful test firing of the missile on Thursday that Pakistan's cruise missile is much better than India's.
Pakistan and India share more than half a century of hostile relations, mainly because of their dispute over the Himalayan region of Kashmir.
The talks in New Delhi on missile tests notification and nuclear hotline were part of a peace initiative the two countries began in January last year aimed at resolving minor issues before trying to tackle the main Kashmir dispute.
