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Agni II a blow to peace: Pak foreign minister

Pakistan Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz has described the test-firing of the Agni II missile by India on Sunday as a blow to the process of normalisation of relations between the two countries.

Aziz, who was asked by the Urdu service of the British Broadcasting Corporation last night about his country's response to the Agni-II test firing, said Pakistan will announce its reaction in the next two to three days.

Aziz agreed that India had provided advance information to Pakistan about the test-firing, but did not disclose its timing. "We told India it would be a negative development which would adversely affect the talks between the two countries, but India replied it was part of its programme,'' he said.

He accused India of having introduced a new weapon system in the region by testing its latest missile and added that India was already buying new systems from Russia. ''All these has increased the threat to our security,'' he told the BBC.

Earlier, Aziz said this had violated the self-imposed restrictions against undertaking further nuclear experiments agreed to by the two neighbours.

A Pakistan foreign office spokesman said India was regularly trying to acquire heavy weapons systems besides being busy in the mass production of such weapons.

Pakistan is gravely concerned and Sunday's test-firing from Orissa is a threat to its internal security as the conventional weapons balance had been disturbed, he said.

Pakistan would take steps in the ''interest of regional peace and its own security and would acquire all possible defence capability''.

The Pakistan high commissioner in New Delhi had been intimated about the test, but had not been given the date. Under the Lahore Declaration the two countries were bound to inform each other before conducting such tests, the spokesman added.

India had been 'crying itself hoarse' against the test-firing of missiles. ''Pakistan does not want to enter a nuclear weapons race, but Indian actions had always forced it to take necessary defence measures and this time also we will give a befitting reply,'' Aziz said.

UNI

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