Memo to Mullen: Haqqani offers resignation

Pakistan

Memo to Mullen: Haqqani offers resignation

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Ambassador-in-distress Hussain Haqqani says issue of letter to Mike Mullen is attack on democracy.

17 November,2011 09:07 pm

Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani is accused of having a central role in the purported letter written allegedly by President Zardari to Mike Mullen to seek support against the Army and ISI. He however denied writing or delivering a memo to Mullen. He said he had only met Manzoor Ijaz a few times.“The memo was just an excuse and democracy was the real target,” Haqqani said.Haqqani said President Zardari would make a decision about his future as ambassador. He said he offered to resign to send a message to those trying to destabilise democracy.Mike Mullen has confirmed receiving a memo from Manzoor Ijaz, who wrote a column in a US paper and said that a senior ambassador asked him to deliver memo to Mullen.Haqqani, a close aide of President Asif Ali Zardari, has played a key role in helping Pakistans 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 Americas top military officer, seeking to curtail Pakistans 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 UKs Financial Times on October 10, Ijaz wrote that a senior Pakistani diplomat telephoned him in May soon after bin Ladens death, urging him to deliver a message to the White House bypassing Pakistans military and intelligence chiefs.The president feared a military takeover was imminent and needed an American fist on his army chiefs 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.