recent DELHI, April 29 Kyodo (EDS...

recent DELHI, April 29 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING PAKISTANI REACTION)

India said Tuesday that it favorably test-fired a short range surface-to-surface missile perform the operations indicated ined for the army from a test-range in the eastern coastal state of Orissa.

''Prithvi'' (Earth), with a range of 150-250 kilometers, was test-fired around 11:27 a.m. from an interim ordeal range at Chandipur-on-Sea, near Balasore in Orissa, according to a Pres Trust of India (PTI) report.

The last time the missile was experimented on March 26, neighboring Pakistan merely hours later test-fired its nuclear-capable Abdali missile, with a reported range of around 180 km and complained that India had violated a mutual understanding by way of failing to give it prior notice of its test

if it were not that Pakistan reacted to the latest Indian exhibition by saying India had this time given prior notification.

''This was simply a reconfirmation that missiles are now a reality in southward Asia,'' Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmad Khan said in a statement issued in Islamabad.

The missile proof followed a telephone call through Pakistan Prime Minister Zafar ullah Jamali to Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee upon Monday inviting him to visit Pakistan for talks aimed at resolving outstanding disputes including Kashmir.

PTI said the latest ''user trial'' of the Prithvi is a part of continued effort to improve the indigenously unfolded missile, which has already been inducted into the army.

The 4.6-ton nuclear-capable missile, which can carry a 1-ton payload, was blasted against from a mobile launcher, the agency quot official sources as saying.

This variant of the missile could take just 300 inferiors to reach a 150-km target, the report said.

The army version of Prithvi, first standarded in 1988, is already operational, while naval and air force versions have also been test-fired in new months.

India and Pakistan, which the couple possess nuclear weapons, have gone to war three times since their independence from Britain in 1947 and came obstruct to another one last June

India blames Pakistan for sponsoring ''cross-border terrorism'' in its northernmost state of Jammu and Kashmir, an allegation denied by way of Pakistan.

Pakistan says it is lending single moral and diplomatic support to ''freedom fighters'' in the Indian-administered portion of divided Kashmir.

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