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White House reserves comments on Pak, India missile tests
Washington, Oct 05: The White House has reserved its comments on the back-to-back missile tests carried out by Pakistan and India even as the US state department went on record expressing its disappointment with both.
Washington, Oct 05: The White House has reserved its comments on the back-to-back missile tests carried out by Pakistan and India even as the US state department went on
record expressing its disappointment with both.
White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, when asked specifically whether he had any reaction to the Pakistani test, replied "I have noted reports about India and Pakistan's tests and have no comments on them." When a correspondent persisted and asked "no comment on either," he said "we noted the tests, we noted the nature of the tests, and we have no comment."
Pakistani had yesterday test-fired its nuclear-capable offensive medium range missile Hatf-VI. Within hours of the Pakistani test, India test-fired its own medium-range, surface-to-air, defensive Akash missile. US officials, on the other hand, were semi-officially expressing disappointment with the Pakistani test when news came of the Indian Akash test and they quickly switched to voicing disappointment with both.
Asked again about the Pakistani test at a briefing by Deputy State Department Spokesman Philip Reeker at the foreign press centre of the state department, Reeker said "we don't think that is helpful given the tensions in the region, the missile tests of pakistan as well as India, and we have generally said these things are not helpful given the tensions in the region." "So we would ask both countries to consider that," he said.
Bureau Report
White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, when asked specifically whether he had any reaction to the Pakistani test, replied "I have noted reports about India and Pakistan's tests and have no comments on them." When a correspondent persisted and asked "no comment on either," he said "we noted the tests, we noted the nature of the tests, and we have no comment."
Pakistani had yesterday test-fired its nuclear-capable offensive medium range missile Hatf-VI. Within hours of the Pakistani test, India test-fired its own medium-range, surface-to-air, defensive Akash missile. US officials, on the other hand, were semi-officially expressing disappointment with the Pakistani test when news came of the Indian Akash test and they quickly switched to voicing disappointment with both.
Asked again about the Pakistani test at a briefing by Deputy State Department Spokesman Philip Reeker at the foreign press centre of the state department, Reeker said "we don't think that is helpful given the tensions in the region, the missile tests of pakistan as well as India, and we have generally said these things are not helpful given the tensions in the region." "So we would ask both countries to consider that," he said.
Bureau Report