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Pak yet to decide on Husain Haqqani`s resignation
The Pakistan Government has said it has not yet decided whether or not to accept the resignation offered by its ambassador.
Islamabad: The Pakistan Government has said it has not yet decided whether or not to accept the resignation offered by its ambassador to the US over a reported attempt to enlist Washington’s help to rein in the country’s military after the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
The Dawn quoted Pakistani presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar as saying that the government had summoned Ambassador Husain Haqqani to Islamabad to question him about any role he might have played in the controversy, which was first disclosed by the media on October 10. Mansoor Ijaz, a US citizen of Pakistani origin, said in a media report that a senior unnamed Pakistani diplomat had asked him on May 9, a week after US commandos killed bin Laden in his Abbottabad compound, to pass a message from President Asif Ali Zardari to the US asking for help.
Zardari was reportedly worried that the US raid had humiliated his government, which had no knowledge whether the military might stage a coup, something that has happened repeatedly in Pakistan’s history, Ijaz said. The memo sent to Admiral Mike Mullen, the top US military officer at the time, reportedly offered to curb support to militants from Pakistan’s military intelligence service, the ISI, in exchange for American assistance, he added.
The Pakistani Foreign Ministry has called the Financial Times column “a total fabrication.”
But Admiral Mullen’s spokesman, Captain John Kirby, confirmed to the Foreign Policy’s website on Wednesday that Admiral Mullen did receive the memo from Ijaz, but did not find it credible and ignored it.
Haqqani said on Thursday that he did not write or deliver the memo, but offered his resignation to end the controversy.
”I do not want this non-issue of an insignificant memo written by a private individual and not considered credible by its lone recipient to undermine democracy,” Haqqani said. ANI
The Dawn quoted Pakistani presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar as saying that the government had summoned Ambassador Husain Haqqani to Islamabad to question him about any role he might have played in the controversy, which was first disclosed by the media on October 10. Mansoor Ijaz, a US citizen of Pakistani origin, said in a media report that a senior unnamed Pakistani diplomat had asked him on May 9, a week after US commandos killed bin Laden in his Abbottabad compound, to pass a message from President Asif Ali Zardari to the US asking for help.
Zardari was reportedly worried that the US raid had humiliated his government, which had no knowledge whether the military might stage a coup, something that has happened repeatedly in Pakistan’s history, Ijaz said. The memo sent to Admiral Mike Mullen, the top US military officer at the time, reportedly offered to curb support to militants from Pakistan’s military intelligence service, the ISI, in exchange for American assistance, he added.
The Pakistani Foreign Ministry has called the Financial Times column “a total fabrication.”
But Admiral Mullen’s spokesman, Captain John Kirby, confirmed to the Foreign Policy’s website on Wednesday that Admiral Mullen did receive the memo from Ijaz, but did not find it credible and ignored it.
Haqqani said on Thursday that he did not write or deliver the memo, but offered his resignation to end the controversy.
”I do not want this non-issue of an insignificant memo written by a private individual and not considered credible by its lone recipient to undermine democracy,” Haqqani said. ANI