Today in Asian History: May 28

UCLA Center for East Asian Studies

Today in Asian History

May 28

1998 Pakistan joined the ranks of nations possessing nuclear weapons. It exploded five nuclear devices. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said that the demonstration of his nation's nuclear capacity "settled the score with India." He further stated that Pakistan would place nuclear weapons on intermediate range nuclear missiles. He said, "Pakistan was left with no choice but to detonate its own nuclear devices."

A week after the tests, the United Nations Security Council [condemned] "the nuclear tests conducted by India on 11 and 13 May 1998 and by Pakistan on 28 and 30 May 1998.... [and demanded] that India and Pakistan refrain from further nuclear tests and in this context calls upon all States not to carry out any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion in accordance with the provisions of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty...." (June 4, 1998)

The following resources focus on the Pakistani nuclear weapons program:

Center for Nonproliferation Studies (Monterey Institute of International Studies) resources on India and Pakistan (an extensive collection of maps, photographs, chronologies, and reports)

Federation of American Scientists report on tests, other materials on Pakistan

Center for Defense Information (Washington, D.C.) page on the five tests

The AI "Today in Asian History" page was compiled by Clayton Dube. He welcomes your comments and suggestions. Send them to <cdube@isop.ucla.edu>.

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