Pakistan has rejected Donald Trump’s claim that it is among a handful of nations actively testing nuclear weapons.
A senior Pakistani security official told CBS News his country was “not the first to carry out nuclear tests and will not be the first to resume nuclear tests".
The rare rebuttal comes at a time when Pakistan is otherwise seeking to strengthen ties with the US under Mr Trump.
Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif has been showering praise on the American president for brokering a ceasefire with India following a brief military conflict in May. India has played down Mr Trump’s involvement.
Mr Trump, who has directed the Pentagon to resume nuclear weapons testing, told CBS News last week that China, Russia, North Korea and Pakistan were also testing nuclear weapons, as he sought to justify his decision.
“Russia's testing, and China's testing, but they don't talk about it," Mr Trump said in an interview with 60 Minutes. "We're gonna test, because they test, and others test. And certainly North Korea's been testing. Pakistan's been testing.”
When pressed that he was conflating testing of nuclear weapons with tests of nuclear missiles, the president argued that countries “don't go and tell you about it”.
"As powerful as they are, this is a big world. You don't necessarily know where they are testing,” he said. “They test way 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,” he added. “We have to test."
Last week, Mr Trump ordered the Pentagon to "immediately" start "testing our nuclear weapons", ending a three-decade-old moratorium on US nuclear testing and prompting fears of a new arms race among the world’s nuclear powers.
The president’s order fuelled confusion and alarm among scientists and experts who warned that his “reckless” and vague instructions could risk triggering the first major build-up of nuclear warheads by world powers in decades.
Mr Trump didn’t give any details about the proposed tests, but the announcement appeared designed to boost US development in a race against modernised nuclear weapons delivery systems from Russia and China. The world’s nuclear powers together possess more than 12,000 warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
The US and Russia alone possess roughly 87 per cent of the world’s nuclear weapons stockpiles and 83 per cent of the warheads are available for military use. The rest are held by the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea.
The US last conducted a confirmed nuclear test in 1992 and signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty – which bans all atomic test explosions, whether for military or civilian – in 1996.
Pakistan has claimed that its last nuclear explosive test was done in 1998, and that it has since maintained a "unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing". Pakistan is not a signatory to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
China has reportedly not tested a nuclear weapon since 1996, and Russia’s most recent tests involved delivery systems, not actual detonation of a nuclear device.
The Chinese foreign ministry on Monday dismissed Mr Trump's claim and said Beijing had not broken the informal moratorium for decades.
"As a responsible nuclear-weapon state, China is committed to peaceful development, follows a policy of ‘no first use’ of nuclear weapons and a nuclear strategy that focuses on self-defence, and adheres to its nuclear testing moratorium," a spokesperson said.
