Pakistani Ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani says he is flying home to answer allegations he wrote an explosive memo that asked for Washington’s help in reining in the Pakistani military.
Haqqani, who denies he was behind the memo, tweeted yesterday that he was heading to the “motherland.” Officials confirmed his return.
Businessman Mansoor Ijaz, a US citizen of Pakistani origin based in Zurich, said in a column in the Financial Times last month that a senior Pakistani diplomat asked for assistance in getting a message from Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to Admiral Mike Mullen, then-chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Ijaz said on Friday that he wrote a memo outlining the civilian government’s fears of military intervention and sent it to the Pentagon on the instructions of Pakistan’s ambassador to the US.
The memo, which the Pakistani ambassador denies writing, would appear to show the civilian government trying to enlist US help in its struggle with the military, which has ruled Pakistan for more than half its history.
The memo requested Mullen’s intercession to stave off a coup, but added that, with the military on the defensive after the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a US raid on his Pakistani hideout, there was an opportunity to bring it to heel.
Ijaz said Haqqani called him on May 9, one week after the US raid that killed bin Laden, to help get a message to the US.
“The memo’s content in its entirety originated from him,” Ijaz said, referring to Haqqani. “At a certain point he started talking so fast, I opened up my computer and I started typing the basic outline of the verbal message he wanted me to transmit. He was originally asking me to deliver a verbal message and when I went back to my US interlocutors — all three of them — said they wouldn’t touch this unless it was in writing.”
Haqqani has denied any connection with the memo.
“I refuse to accept Mr Ijaz’s claims and assertions,” he said in a statement on Thursday. “I did not write or deliver the memo he describes, nor did I authorize anyone including Mr Ijaz to do so.”
On Wednesday, Haqqani offered his resignation to Zardari. It has not yet been officially accepted.
Some analysts cast doubt on Ijaz’s credibility.
“Ijaz is someone who has been circulating on the fringes of Washington policy circles for years, but most Pakistan watchers do not find him particularly reliable,” said Lisa Curtis, a veteran Pakistan analyst at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.
Copies of the memo have been published in Pakistan with the controversy stoked by anti-US and anti-government media speculating whether it was authorized by Zardari or if Haqqani was acting on his own. Ijaz says he does not know.
“Zardari doesn’t even know this guy,” Haqqani said.
The Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment on the matter on Friday.
The memo’s contents are likely to anger Pakistan’s military, which sets foreign and security policies. In recent months, there has been sharp tension between the weak civilian government and the military leadership.
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