The Nation, in an investigative report, said that even in Islamabad, there is widespread belief that the Kargil operation was the ``army's way of wing-clipping Nawaz Sharif''. But this belief, though ``tempting, is misleading''.

The report, based on extensive background interviews in the Pakistani political establishment, said that ``Mr Sharif has been kept in the broad picture of Pakistan's Kashmir policy whose basic contours he himself approved''.

The report further said that Kashmir was discussed extensively in a series of high-level meetings in late 1998 and in the first quarter of 1999 which, ``Mr Sharif along with his close aides, some cabinet ministers, secretaries of important ministries had with the military topbrass''.

The basic aim of the Kargil operation, which had been decided at these meetings according to the report, was that, ``Pakistan has to bring India to the negotiating table to seriously discuss Kashmir and to find (a) solution''.