Pakistan ‘Violated’ Agreement With India In 1999: Former Pak PM Nawaz Sharif

Former Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday acknowledged that Islamabad had "violated" an agreement with India signed by him and former Indian PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1999, in an apparent reference to the Kargil misadventure by General 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 was quoted by news agency PTI as telling inside 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.

On 21 February 1999, Sharif and Vajpayee signed the Lahore Declaration, after a historic peace summit in Lahore. However, after a few months later Pakistani intrusion in the Kargil district in Jammu and Kashmir 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 prime minister) Imran Khan like a person been on my seat he would have accepted Clinton's offer," Sharif was quoted as saying 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 the prime minister in 2017 on a false case by then chief justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar. He said all cases against him were false while the cases against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder leader Imran Khan were true.

He also talked about the role of former ISI chief Gen Zahirul Islam in toppling his government in 2017 to bring Imran Khan into power. He asked Imran Khan to deny that he was not launched by the ISI.

The three-time premier talked about receiving a message from Gen Islam to resign from the office of prime minister (in 2014). "When I refused, he threatened to make an example of me," he was quoted as saying.

Sharif also praised his younger brother Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for standing by his side through thick and thin.