US President Donald Trump has claimed that Pakistan is among several countries currently conducting nuclear tests, arguing that such activities by other nations justify the United States resuming its own testing program.
In an interview with CBS News's 60 Minutes on Sunday, Trump said that countries including Russia, China, North Korea, and Pakistan are carrying out nuclear tests while the US remains the only major power refraining from doing so.
"Russia's testing and China's testing, but they don't talk about it. We're an open society. We're different. We talk about it. We have to talk about it because otherwise you people are going to report. They don't have reporters that are going to be writing about it," Trump said.
"We're going to test because they test and others test. And certainly North Korea's been testing. Pakistan's been testing," he added.
Trump made the remarks while responding to a question about his decision to resume nuclear detonations after more than three decades, following reports of Russia testing advanced nuclear-capable systems, including the Poseidon underwater drone.
"You have to see how they work. The reason I'm saying testing is that Russia announced that they were going to be doing a test. If you notice, North Korea is testing constantly. Other countries are testing. We're the only country that doesn't test. And I don't want to be the only country that doesn't test," Trump said during the interview.
"We're going to test nuclear weapons like other countries do," he added.
Trump also asserted that the United States has "more nuclear weapons than any other country," and said he had discussed denuclearisation with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
"We have enough nuclear weapons to blow up the world 150 times," Trump said. "Russia has a lot of nuclear weapons and China will have a lot. They have some. They have quite a bit."
Earlier on Thursday, Trump announced the immediate resumption of US nuclear weapons testing, citing Russia's recent trials of advanced nuclear-capable systems, a move seen as a significant escalation between the two nuclear powers.