'Pakistan Withdrew Its Troops At My Insistence'

In a startling revelation, formerUS president Bill Clinton has said Pakistan "withdrew its troops" fromKargil at his insistence and it might be one of the reasons for the ouster of Nawaz Sharif in a coup.

Narrating the sequence of events leading to troops withdrawal from Kargilback to the line of control by Pakistan in 1999, he said "then primeminister Nawaz Sharif called and wanted to come and see me with a delegation onJuly 4, our independence day.

"I said...You have to know two things before you come. Don't come if youare not prepared for these two things. You cannot come for this emergencymeeting unless you're prepared to withdraw Pakistani troops back over the lineof control," Clinton told the BBC world in a special debate broadcasttoday.

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

"So he (Sharif) said he understood it, he came to Washington... He triedto talk me out of my position and eventually i talked him back towards the phoneconversation ... And he withdrew back from the line of control."

Clinton said this must have contributed to Sharif's deposition.

"I've always thought that one of the reasons may be that he was deposedbecause he did it... After the country was whipped up into a fervour. There wereother reasons but i think that was a factor. But he did the right thing,"he said.

Clinton said Sharif's action must have marked "the beginning of acooling off of the process that has led the Indian prime minister to propose aresumption of the dialogue which apparently is about to resume."

Reiterating that he regarded Kashmir as the most dangerous place in the worldtoday, he said he would have been happy to devote "more time on trying toresolve 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."