Islamabad: As the powerful military here held out threats to India, former Pakistan Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif has said Islamabad must stop treating New Delhi
as its "biggest enemy" and conduct a reappraisal of ties with
the neighbour "if we want to go forward and progress".
Sharif, who was in power when the Kargil crisis
erupted, also sought a probe into the 1999 conflict with
India.
The former Prime Minister said said he was stunned by
then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's remarks in
1999 that the Kashmir issue could be resolved.
Vajpayee proposed back channel diplomacy to resolve
long-standing issues and the process was about to start when
the "Kargil misadventure dealt a severe blow to our efforts",
he said.
The former Prime Minister, who is the chief of main
opposition PML-N party, is currently on a three-day visit to
southern Sindh province where he made the remarks during an
interaction with the media in Karachi yesterday.
He called on the government to also conduct an inquiry
into the 2006 killing of Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti in a
military operation and the carnage in Karachi on May 12, 2007
that killed over 40 people who tried to rally in support of
then-deposed Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.
Sharif, whose government was deposed in a military
coup led by former President Pervez Musharraf in 1999,
reiterated his demand for the budgets of the military and the
ISI to be placed before Parliament for scrutiny in line with
the practice in other democracies.
He said one of his biggest regrets was not taming the
powerful military when he was Prime Minister in the 1990s.
The Parliamentary resolution calling for an
independent commission to investigate the killing of al-Qaeda
leader Osama bin Laden in a US raid on May 2 was the first
step towards making Parliament a sovereign body, Sharif said.
"We need structural changes and this inquiry has
provided an opportunity to move forward and put the country on
the right track, correct its direction by putting our house in
order, establish the rule of law and bring all institutions
under civilian control," Sharif said.
If the government fixes responsibility for the
Abbottabad incident and punishes those found guilty, a message
will go out to the world that the people of Pakistan will not
brook another embarrassment like the US raid, he said.
Sharif spoke out against the recent alliance forged by
the ruling PPP and the PML-Q, both of which are rivals of his
PML-N in Punjab and at the centre.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, May 17, 2011, 17:01