‘It was our fault’: Nawaz Sharif admits to Pakistan violating 1999 Lahore Declaration signed with India

SS Former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has admitted that Islamabad violated an agreement that it had signed with India when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the prime minister.

In an apparent reference to General Parvez Musharraf’s Kargil misadventure, Sharif said, “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.” The former prime minister was speaking at a meeting of the PML-N general council that elected him president of the ruling party.

The Lahore Declaration was aimed to bring peace between the two warring nations, and was signed on February 21, 1999, in what was touted as a historic summit. It called for maintaining peace and security and to promote people-to-people contact, among other measures. However, in a violation of the declaration, Pakistani forces intruded in the Kargil district of Jammu and Kashmir, leading to the Kargil War.