Pakistan's military said Tuesday it successfully test fired a short-range missile that can carry nuclear warheads.

The military said in a statement that the Hatf 9 (Nasr) has a range of 60 kilometers and “addresses the need to deter evolving threats, especially at shorter ranges.”

The statement quoted Lieutenant General Khalid Ahmed Kidwai as saying “the test was a major development which will consolidate Pakistan's deterrence capability at all levels of the threat spectrum, thereby ensuring peace in the region.”

This was Pakistan's third ballistic missile test since April, when India claimed it successfully test-fired a new missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead as far as Beijing.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947.

Also Tuesday, Pakistan's military officially declared dead the 140 people buried in an avalanche on the Siachen glacier on April 7.

The avalanche and landslide struck a Pakistani army battalion headquarters in the mountains of Kashmir along the Indian border, known as the world's highest battlefield.

The incident prompted calls for Pakistan and India to demilitarize the disputed glacier, where more troops have lost their lives due to bad weather than fighting.

Pakistan's military said Tuesday that only three soldiers' bodies have been recovered so far, despite efforts by rescue teams, which have dug tunnels through the snow and ice.

The site is located at an altitude of some 4,000 meters and is just a few kilometers away from Indian outposts.

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