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Pakistan envoy to US offers resignation in memo row


ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, Hussain Haqqani, said on Thursday that he had offered to resign over reports that he sought US help against the country's powerful military.
Haqqani, a close aide of President Asif Ali Zardari, has played a key role in helping Pakistan's civilian government navigate turbulent relations with Washington that nosedived over the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May.
"I have offered to resign in conjunction with an offer to face an inquiry," Haqqani said, denying the reports, in an email sent to AFP.
He said the purpose of this move "is to bring to an end the current controversy and allow the democratic government, for which I have worked very hard, to move on. The decision on whether I continue to serve or not rests with President Zardari".
Local media reports implicate Haqqani in a memo allegedly sent from Zardari to Admiral Mike Mullen, then America's top military officer, seeking to curtail Pakistan's military after it was humiliated by the bin Laden killing.
Zardari reportedly feared that the military might seize power in one way to limit the hugely damaging fallout in Pakistan after Navy SEALs killed bin Laden in the garrison city of Abbottabad on May 2.
"Our country and government face real challenges," Haqqani said, denying ever writing such a memo and calling the matter a "non issue".
Officials had confirmed earlier that Haqqani has been summoned to Islamabad.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Thursday accused the media of hounding Zardari over the memo whose existence was revealed last month by American businessman Mansoor Ijaz.
"He has already offered his resignation to the president, saying a hype has been created," Malik said.
In an opinion piece in UK's Financial Times on October 10, Ijaz wrote that a "senior Pakistani diplomat" telephoned him in May soon after bin Laden's death, urging him to deliver a message to the White House bypassing Pakistan's military and intelligence chiefs.
"The president feared a military takeover was imminent" and "needed an American fist on his army chief's desk to end any misguided notions of a coup -- and fast," he wrote.
He said a memo was delivered to Mullen on May 10, offering that a "new national security team" would end relations between Pakistani intelligence and Afghan militants, namely the Taliban and its Haqqani faction.
Pakistani Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan said that Haqqani will be required to come to Islamabad and "explain his position and the leadership will decide if there is any lapse".

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