Pakistan summons envoy in memo row

resign over reports that he sought US help against the powerful military, officials said yesterday.
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.
Local media reports implicate him 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 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.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik yesterday accused the media of hounding Zardari over the memo whose existence was revealed last month by American businessman Mansoor Ijaz, but confirmed that Haqqani would explain his role.
Writing in the Financial Times on October 10, Ijaz said a “senior Pakistani diplomat” telephoned him in May, saying that Zardari wanted to get 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”, said the article published on the opinion pages.
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 confirmed that Haqqani, who has been ambassador in Washington since 2008, had been summoned. – AFP.