‘Our fault’: Pakistan ex-PM Nawaz Sharif on Kargil misadventure

Lahore, May 28

Former Pakistan premier Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday admitted that Islamabad had violated an agreement with India signed by him and former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1999, in an apparent reference to the Kargil misadventure by Gen Pervez Musharraf.

“On May 28, 1998, Pakistan carried out five nuclear tests. After that Vajpayee saheb came here and made an agreement with us. But we violated that agreement… it was our fault,” Sharif told a meeting of the PML-N general council that elected him president of the ruling party six years after he was disqualified by the Supreme Court.

Sharif and Vajpayee signed the Lahore Declaration on February 21, 1999. The agreement that talked about a vision of peace and stability between the two countries signalled a major breakthrough, but a few months later Pakistani intrusion in the Kargil district in J&K led to the Kargil War.

“President Bill Clinton had offered Pakistan USD 5 billion to stop it from carrying out nuclear tests but I refused. Had (former PM) Imran Khan like a person been on my seat he would have accepted Clinton’s offer,” Sharif said on a day when Pakistan marked the 26th anniversary of its first nuclear tests. Sharif (74) talked about how he was removed from the office of PM in 2017 on a false case by then CJ Saqib Nisar. He said all cases against him were false while the cases against PTI founder leader Imran Khan were true.