ISLAMABAD Pakistani Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub Khan has defended the recent Iranian missile test stating, it is a right of the Islamic Republic of Iran to carry out experiments of such nature. Iran on Saturday announced successful testing of Shahab-3, its 1,300 km-range missile. In an interview with IRNA in Islamabad, the foreign minister dismissed allegations by the West that Iran has imported its missile technology.

It's a common knowledge that the Iranian advanced missile system has long been in development, he said. Commenting on Western reactions that the missile test constituted a danger to the Zionist regime, Gohar Ayub Khan said this is a common practice by some Western states to sow seeds of mistrust. On the use of the term fundamentalist by the West in reference to Muslims, the Pakistani official explained that the term was actually used some 250 years ago by the French Protestant Church against the Catholics. We don't have such a thing as fundamentalist, Gohar Ayub Khan added.

Meanwhile, Kuwait's Foreign Minister Al-Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad said the testing of the missile Shahab-3 by Iran does not pose any threat to Kuwait or to the region. International Arab daily Al-Hayat Sunday quoted Sabah al-Ahmad saying I hope that we would not take the subject as a threat to security of Kuwait or the region in reply to a question on Iran's successful test of the missile.

The Kuwaiti foreign minister added that he hoped there would be stability in the region and that there would not be any arms race. Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mahmoud Mohammadi on Sunday stressed that the Iranian missile technology is solely for defensive purposes and that the capability is not meant for first strike use against others.