Kargil ceasefire at Musharraf insistence, says Sharif

Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif has claimed that he called for a ceasefire to end the Kargil war in 1999 after Army chief Pervez Musharraf “begged” him to do so. Sharif, in an interview for a book Gaddar Kaun, also scoffed at the “pull-out” by the Pakistani troops from Kargil saying they had “lost everything.” He admitted Pakistan made a “request” to militants to withdraw from Kargil only to “show to the world” that Pakistani troops had not occupied the icy heights in Jammu and Kashmir.

“The fact is that when Musharraf’s misadventure failed miserably, this commando general came to me to get the war ceased at any cost,” Sharif told author Suhail Warraich in an interview for an updated edition of the book which was released in Pakistan on Friday. Sharif said that US General Anthony Zinni’s book “verifies this claim of mine”. “His testimony clearly says that it was the army chief and not the prime minister, who wanted the ceasefire.” Sharif refuted Musharraf’s claims that international pressure over Kargil had demoralised him. “It is an interesting claim. I was not demoralised by the international pressure. First, he begged me for a ceasefire and then bade me farewell at the Chaklala Airport for Washington.”