Washington: Is Pakistan carrying out nuclear tests on the sly?
At least US president Donald Trump believes so.
In an interview to CBS News, Trump said that Pakistan is among the countries actively testing nuclear weapons. His statement came at a time when there are reports of the US resuming nuclear tests.
Trump made it clear that the US needs to carry out tests as several nations, including Russia, China, North Korea, and Pakistan, are doing so.
“Russia’s testing and China’s testing, but they don’t talk about it. We’re an open society. We’re different. We talk about it. We have to talk about it because otherwise you people are going to report. They don’t have reporters that are going to be writing about it,” the US president said.
“We’re going to test because they test and others test. And certainly North Korea’s been testing. Pakistan’s been testing,” he added.
Trump, however, claimed the US does not “necessarily know” where these “powerful” nations that are testing nuclear weapons are, but asserted the testing is being done.
“They — they test way under — underground where people don’t know exactly what’s happening with the test. You feel a little bit of a vibration. They test and we don’t test. We have to test,” he said.
The Republican leader made these remarks when he was asked about his decision of “detonating nuclear weapons” after more than 30 years following Russia’s recent trials of advanced nuclear-capable systems, including a Poseidon underwater drone.
“You have to see how they work. The reason I’m saying testing is because Russia announced that they were going to be doing a test. If you notice, North Korea is testing constantly. Other countries are testing. We’re the only country that doesn’t test. And I don’t want to be the only country that doesn’t test,” Trump stated during the interview.
He also claimed that the US possesses “more nuclear weapons than any other country,” adding that he had discussed denuclearisation with Russian president Vladimir Putin and Chinese premier Xi Jinping.
“We have enough nuclear weapons to blow up the world 150 times,” the US president said, adding: “Russia has a lot of nuclear weapons, and China will have a lot. They have some. They have quite a bit.”
US energy secretary Chris Wright has clarified that the testing will not involve nuclear explosions at this time. This was the first clarity from the Trump administration since the president took to social media last week to say he had “instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis.”
“I think the tests we’re talking about right now are system tests. These are not nuclear explosions. These are what we call non-critical explosions,” Wright said in an interview with Fox News.
The secretary, whose agency is responsible for testing, added that the planned testing involves “all the other parts of a nuclear weapon to make sure they deliver the appropriate geometry and they set up the nuclear explosion.”
He added that the tests will be carried out on new systems to help ensure the new nuclear weapons are better than previous ones.
