Soldiers from the country's strategic force command carried out a "successful" launch of the Hatf III (Ghaznavi) missile, which has a range of 290 kilometres (180 miles), an army statement said.

The launch was witnessed by caretaker Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro and army chief Ashfaq Kayani, the statement added, saying that more details would be announced later.

Pakistan and India have routinely conducted missile tests since the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours carried out tit-for-tat atomic detonations in May 1998.

However in 2004 they launched a slow-moving peace process aimed at ending six decades of hostility and resolving their dispute over the Himalayan territory of Kashmir, the cause of two of their three wars.

In February 2007 Pakistan and India signed a deal to cut the risk of atomic weapons accidents.

The two countries have an agreement to notify each other about tests of ballistic missiles but not cruise missiles.

All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.