foqia khan
MPA (400+ posts)
GEO Pakistan
WASHINGTON: The Obama administration has accused Pakistan of illegally modifying U.S.-made missiles to expand its ability to hit land-based targets, which would constitute a threat to India, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions.
Citing senior administration and Congressional officials, the Times said the charge came in late June through an unpublicized diplomatic protest to Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and other top Pakistani officials.
The accusation, made amid growing concerns about Pakistan's increasingly rapid conventional and nuclear weapons development, triggered a new round of U.S.-Pakistani tensions, the report added.
"There's a concerted effort to get these guys to slow down," the newspaper quoted a senior administration official as saying. "Their energies are misdirected," the official added.
A senior Pakistani official called the accusation "incorrect," saying that the missile tested was developed by Pakistan, just as it had modified North Korean designs to build a range of land-based missiles.
U.S. officials said the disputed weapon is a conventional one based on the Harpoon anti-ship missiles that were sold to Pakistan during the Reagan administration as a defensive weapon, the newspaper reported, but Pakistan has upgraded and modified it into surface to surface missile.
http://geo.tv/8-30-2009/48455.htm
WASHINGTON: The Obama administration has accused Pakistan of illegally modifying U.S.-made missiles to expand its ability to hit land-based targets, which would constitute a threat to India, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions.
Citing senior administration and Congressional officials, the Times said the charge came in late June through an unpublicized diplomatic protest to Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and other top Pakistani officials.
The accusation, made amid growing concerns about Pakistan's increasingly rapid conventional and nuclear weapons development, triggered a new round of U.S.-Pakistani tensions, the report added.
"There's a concerted effort to get these guys to slow down," the newspaper quoted a senior administration official as saying. "Their energies are misdirected," the official added.
A senior Pakistani official called the accusation "incorrect," saying that the missile tested was developed by Pakistan, just as it had modified North Korean designs to build a range of land-based missiles.
U.S. officials said the disputed weapon is a conventional one based on the Harpoon anti-ship missiles that were sold to Pakistan during the Reagan administration as a defensive weapon, the newspaper reported, but Pakistan has upgraded and modified it into surface to surface missile.
http://geo.tv/8-30-2009/48455.htm
