‘Illegal nuclear activities in line with Pakistan’s history’: India on Trump’s claim on nuclear resting

After US President Donald Trump claimed that Pakistan has been secretively conducting nuclear tests, India on Friday flagged Pakistan’s long history of nuclear proliferation and said any illegal nuclear activity will be in line with Pakistan’s history.

In his weekly press conference, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Randhir Jaiswal said that Pakistan’s history with nuclear weapons is “centered around decades of smuggling, export control violations, secret partnerships, AQ Khan network, and further proliferation”.

“India has always drawn the attention of the international community to these aspects of Pakistan’s record. In this backdrop, we have taken note of President Trump’s comment about Pakistan’s nuclear testing,” Jaiswal further said.

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Jaiswal’s remarks were in response to queries about Trump saying that Pakistan has been conducting nuclear tests in secrecy.

#WATCH | Delhi | MEA Official Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal says, "Clandestine and illegal nuclear activities are in keeping with Pakistan’s history, that is centered around decades of smuggling, export control violations, secret partnerships, AQ Khan network and further… pic.twitter.com/4B4Gwe8xEE

— ANI (@ANI) November 7, 2025

After announcing that the United States will resume nuclear tests, Trump said it was necessitated by the purported reality that others were also conducting tests.

“Russia’s testing. And China’s testing. But they don’t talk about it. You know, we’re an open society. We’re different. We talk about it. We have to talk about it because otherwise you people are gonna report. They don’t have reporters that gonna be writing about it. We do. No, we’re gonna test because they test and others test. And certainly North Korea’s been testing. Pakistan’s been testing,” Trump told CBS News last week.

Pakistan’s illicit nuclear arms trade

Pakistan has been the world’s most well-known nuclear proliferator.

Pakistan and North Korea have helped each other on missile- and nuclear warhead-related matters.

AQ Khan, a Pakistani nuclear scientist, cultivated a network that sold nuclear weaponry’s know-how and centrifuge designs among other critical components of nuclear weapons programme to North Korea, Libya, and Iran.

Khan was also one of the principal architects of the Pakistani nuclear programme.