Bill Clinton offered $5 bn to not conduct nuclear tests: Sharif

Lahore: Hours after his homecoming, Pakistan’s former prime minister Nawaz Sharif highlighted the achievements of his tenure and recalled how he gave a “befitting reply” to India’s atomic explosion by conducting nuclear tests in 1998 despite being offered USD 5 billion by then US president Bill Clinton not to do so.

Sharif, 73, returned home on a special flight from Dubai, ending a four-year self-imposed exile in the UK, to head his party and try to secure a record fourth term in the general elections expected to be held in January. Wearing a light blue kurta pyjama, a maroon muffler and a black coat, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo flew in from Dubai to Islamabad on the ‘Umeed-e-Pakistan’ chartered plane at around 1:30 pm local time.

He reached Lahore, considered a stronghold of his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party, to address a massive rally.

‘I am meeting you today after several years, but my relationship of love with you is the same. There is no difference in this relationship,” he told the cheering crowd. “The love I am seeing in your eyes, I am proud of it.’

Sharif recalled the huge pressure he faced from foreign governments in 1998 when Pakistan wanted to respond to India’s nuclear test.‘There will be record present in the Foreign Office that Clinton offered me USD 5 billion this happened in 1999...I could have been offered USD 1 billion too, but I was born from the land of Pakistan and it did not give me permission to accept what is against Pakistan’s favour.’