Pakistan’s three-time former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, made a surprising admission on Tuesday. He confessed that Islamabad had ‘violated’ an agreement with India, a pact he had signed with the then-Indian counterpart Atal Behari Vajpayee in 1999, in an apparent reference to the Kargil war led by Gen Pervez Musharraf. This agreement, known as the Lahore Declaration, was signed on 21 February 1999, a significant step towards peace between the two nations.
“On 28 May 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. The agreement signalled a breakthrough, but a few months later, Pakistani incursion in Jammu and Kashmir led to the Kargil War. He also said, “US President Bill Clinton had offered Pakistan $5 billion to stop it from carrying out nuclear tests, but I refused. Had (ex-PM) Imran Khan, like a person, been on my seat, he would have accepted the offer.”
During the PML-N general council meeting, Sharif was re-elected President of the ruling party six years after the Supreme Court disqualified him. His election came on a day that was declared a public holiday to commemorate the 26th anniversary of Pakistan’s nuclear tests, conducted during Nawaz Sharif’s second term as Prime Minister.
Pakistan conducted the tests almost three weeks after India tested its devices on May 11 and 13, 1998, in the Chaghi hills of southwestern Balochistan province, making it the seventh nuclear nation in the world and the first Muslim state to have a nuclear arsenal. While Nawaz was at the peak of his popularity in May 1998, he could not celebrate the first anniversary of the nuclear tests following his ouster from office in October 1998 by General Parvez Musharaff in a military coup.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif hailed Nawaz for nuclear tests, which he said ensured “credible minimum deterrence” in a post on X.
May 28 signifies more than just a mere commemoration of a day; it encapsulates the narrative of our nation's arduous yet remarkable path towards establishing a credible minimum deterrence.
On this historic day ,in 1998, PM Nawaz Sharif demonstrated bold leadership by rejecting…
— Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) May 27, 2024
Team BharatShakti
