Clinton takes credit for Kargil withdrawal

LONDON, JUNE 2. In a startling revelation, the former U.S. President, Mr. Bill Clinton, said Pakistan ``withdrew its troops'' from Kargil at his insistence and it could be one of the reasons for the ouster of the former Pakistan Prime Minister, Mr. Nawaz Sharif, in a coup.

Narrating the sequence of events leading to troops withdrawal from Kargil back to the Line of Control (LoC) by Pakistan in 1999, he said, ``then Prime Minister, Mr. Nawaz Sharif, called and wanted to come and see me with a delegation on July 4, our Independence day.

``I said...You have to know two things before you come. Don't come if you are not prepared for these two things. You cannot come for this emergency meeting unless you are prepared to withdraw Pakistani troops back over the LoC,'' Mr. Clinton told the BBC World in a special debate broadcast today.

``And the second thing is you cannot expect me now to say I intend to mediate in this conflict because the Indians will not have it,'' he said.

``So he (Mr. Sharif) said he understood it, he came to Washington... He tried to talk me out of my position and eventually I talked him back towards the phone conversation ... And he withdrew from the LoC.''

``I have always thought that one of the reasons may be that he was deposed because he did it... After the country was whipped up into a fervour. There were other reasons but I think that was a factor. But, he did the right thing,'' Mr. Clinton said.

Mr. Sharif's action must have marked ``the beginning of a cooling off of the process that has led the Indian Prime Minister to propose a resumption of the dialogue which apparently is about to resume.''

Reiterating that he regarded Kashmir as the most dangerous place in the world, he said he would have been happy to devote ``more time on trying to resolve the Kashmir conflict than most other foreign policy problems. But, if both sides don't want you, there's no point in being involved, because nothing is going to happen.''

- PTI

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