Islamabad, June 4: Pakistan today conducted another test of its nuclear-capable intermediate range ballistic missile Ghauri (Hatf-5), but the country’s ministry of foreign affairs quickly played it down as “routine”.

President Pervez Musharraf witnessed the second Ghauri test-firing along with several senior army officers.

The test-firing, witnessed by President Pervez Musharraf, validated “all the planned additional design parameters”, according to an official statement. The test, it said, was part of a series planned for the Ghauri missile system, which has already been inducted into the army strategic force command.

General Shaukat Sultan, the chief army spokesman, said the missile hit its target 900 km away with 100 per cent accuracy.

Soon after the firing, Musharraf told engineers and scientists of the Khan Research Laboratories — the organisation which developed the system and mastered the uranium enrichment technology — that the test was not intended to send any political signals outside the country but was necessary for validation of technical parameters.

“The people of Pakistan are proud of the country’s scientists and its nuclear and missile programme, which was rightly seen as the cornerstone of the nation’s security policy,” Musharraf said.

“These programmes have gone from strength to strength under our stewardship (and) will never be rolled back,” he said in a reference to the critics who believe the President has cut deals with the US on the strategic programmes.

Foreign ministry spokesman Masood Khan played down the latest test-firing as “routine”. “Being a nuclear state and one working on missile programmes, we need to keep testing the command-and-control systems. They are not meant to intimidate any one,” Khan said when asked whether “the series of tests” should be a concern for neighbouring countries.

Ghauri can carry nuclear and conventional warheads as far as 1,500 km. A similar test was conducted last week and the missile hit its target about 900 kilometres southwest of the launching site, said an official statement.

In the past, all medium-range missiles were fired from a site 120-km east of Islamabad and hit targets in the southwestern Balochistan province.

Foreign defence observers suspect Ghauri is originally based on technology used in the North Korean Nodong missile. However, Islamabad says it is an indigenous effort.

Defence analysts reckon Pakistan is also close to completing and test-firing a two-stage, long-range ballistic missile — with a range of at least 2,200 km — into the Arabian Sea.

After Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Jamali’s visit to the Khan Research Laboratories last month, sections of local media had suggested the long-range missile might be tested in the first week of June. Army officials associated with the preparations for such tests, however, say they have not received any instructions so far.