Nawaz Sharif admits Pakistan violated the Lahore Declaration signed with India

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

Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister of Pakistan, mentioned the Kargil event involving Gen. Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday and admitted that Islamabad had "violated" an agreement with India that he and former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had signed in 1999.

The Lahore Declaration was signed by Sharif and Vajpayee on February 21, 1999, after a landmark conference held in Islamabad. The Kargil War began a few months after the agreement, which outlined a vision of peace and stability between the two countries, as a result of Pakistani incursion in the Jammu and Kashmir area of Kargil.

In a meeting of the PML-N general council that elected him president of the ruling party six years after the Supreme Court disqualified him, 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 74-year-old Sharif talked about how he was removed from office in 2017 when Saqib Nisar, Pakistan's chief justice at the time, wrongly accused him of being the prime minister. He clarified that while all of the charges levelled against him were false, real charges were made against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf founder Imran Khan.

He also talked about how Imran Khan was chosen as prime minister in 2017 after his administration was overthrown in large part by Gen. Zahirul Islam, the former chief of the ISI. He asked Imran Khan to deny the assertion that he was not launched by the ISI.

“I ask Imran not to blame us (of being patronised by the army) and tell whether Gen Islam had talked about bringing the PTI into power,” Sharif said and added Khan would sit at the feet of the military establishment.

Additionally, Sharif commended his younger brother, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, for sticking by him no matter what.

“Efforts were made to create differences between us but Shehbaz remained loyal to me. Even Shehbaz was asked to become PM in the past and leave me but he declined,” he said.