Days after Pakistan’s former prime minister Nawaz Sharif admitted that Islamabad had violated the Lahore Agreement, India on Thursday said an objective view on the issue was emerging in the neighbouring country.
Sharif said on Tuesday that Islamabad had “violated” an agreement with India signed in 1999 by him and former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in an apparent reference to General Pervez Musharraf’s mismanagement during the Kargil war.
“You are aware of our position on this issue. There is no need for me to reiterate it. We take note of the objective views emerging within Pakistan on this issue,” foreign ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said.
He was responding to questions on the matter during his weekly media briefing.
After the historic summit in Lahore, then Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee and Sharif signed the Lahore Declaration on February 21, 1999.
The agreement, which laid out a vision of peace and stability between the neighbours, was a breakthrough. But a few months later, Pakistan invaded the Kargil region of Jammu and Kashmir, sparking the Kargil conflict.
“On May 28, 1998, Pakistan conducted five nuclear tests. Then Sharif came here and made a pact with us. But we violated that pact. It is our fault,” Sharif said at a meeting of the PML-N general assembly which elected him leader of Pakistan’s ruling party.
First uploaded: 30 May 2024 18:00 IST
