Former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday admitted that Pakistan broke an agreement with India, which he and former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee signed in 1999. He seemed to be referring to the Kargil conflict led by General Pervez Musharraf.
Sharif was reelected as the president of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N party on Tuesday. He was speaking at the party’s general council meeting.
Sharif said that after carrying out five nuclear tests in 1998, Vajpayee had gone to Pakistan and made an agreement. However, Pakistan did not keep its promise and violated the same agreement.
Sharif and Vajpayee had signed the Lahore Declaration on February 21, 1999. This agreement aimed to create peace and stability between Pakistan and India and was seen as a major step forward. However, a few months later, Pakistani forces entered the Kargil district in Jammu and Kashmir, leading to the Kargil conflict.
Nawaz Sharif also mentioned that President Bill Clinton had offered Pakistan USD 5 billion to stop it from conducting nuclear tests, but he refused the offer. He suggested that if someone like former Prime Minister Imran Khan had been in his place, they would have accepted Clinton’s offer.
Sharif, 74, also spoke about his removal from the Prime Minister’s office in 2017, which he blamed on a false case brought by then Chief Justice of Pakistan, Saqib Nisar. He claimed that all charges against him were false, while the charges against Imran Khan, founder of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, were true.
Additionally, he discussed the role of former ISI chief Gen Zahirul Islam in overthrowing his government in 2017 to bring Imran Khan into power. He challenged Imran Khan to deny that he was supported by the ISI.