Pakistan violated the Lahore Declaration that it had signed with India in 1999, former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said on Tuesday, PTI reported.
The Lahore Declaration was a peace agreement between the two countries signed on February 21, 1999 by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Indian prime minister at the time, and his Pakistani counterpart Sharif.
“On May 28, 1998, Pakistan carried out five nuclear tests,” Sharif said at an event on Tuesday. “After that, Vajpayee saheb came here and made an agreement with us. But we violated that agreement. It was our fault.”
The agreement had called for maintaining peace and security, and promoting people-to-people contact, among other steps, to improve bilateral relations. However, Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistan Army chief at the time, had ordered his forces to covertly infiltrate into Ladakh’s Kargil district starting from March 1999 to May 1999.
This led to a war between the two countries between May 1999 and July 1999. Sharif was Pakistan’s prime minister at the time.
At the general council meeting of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) on Tuesday, Sharif also claimed that he carried out nuclear bomb tests in 1998 despite pressure from the United States.
“[US] President Bill Clinton [at the time] had offered Pakistan $5 billion to stop us from carrying out nuclear tests but I refused,” Sharif said. “Had [former prime minister] Imran Khan like person been on my post he would have accepted Clinton’s offer.”
Imran Khan, the leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, was the country’s prime minister from August 2018 to April 2022. He is currently in jail over charges of corruption.
In this year’s general election, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf was disqualified from contesting on account of a Supreme Court ruling that stripped the party of its electoral symbol.
In the general election, independent candidates backed by Khan’s party won 93 seats. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party won 75 seats and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari-led Pakistan People’s Party secured 54 seats.
The Pakistan Peoples Party led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) formed a coalition government led by Shehbaz Sharif, who is the brother of Nawaz Sharif.
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