Memogate: Pakistan envoy to US to explain himself

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, Hussain Haqqani, did not write a letter seeking US help against the country's powerful military, Pakistan's interior minister said Saturday.

However, he was involved in communication via text message with an American national, Rehman Malik said.

Haqqani, who has offered to resign over the situation, but has denied the reports of his involvement, has now been called to Islamabad by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and President Asif Ali Zardari to explain himself.

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 implicated 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 the military might seize power in one way to limit the hugely damaging fallout in Pakistan after Navy SEALs killed bin Laden in Abbottabad on May 2.

The alleged memo was revealed last month by American businessman Mansoor Ijaz.

Speaking in Islamabad, Malik said there was no written letter, but added that Gilani and Zardari had decided to call ambassador Haqqani to explain the situation.

"This was not a letter, neither from presidency nor from any government organisation," Malik said.

"This is communication through SMS (text messages) by two individuals. One is an American national and second is our ambassador."

He said the evidence available was "an exchange of SMS messages and Blackberry messages" and added: "Now we have to see that who initiated these."

Government officials in Islamabad said Haqqani was on his way to the capital.

"And if his point of view was not satisfactory then it is clear that it is open for investigation," Malik said.

"It is not according to the justice to condemn someone without hearing him."

Haqqani has said he will cooperate with the inquiry while denying reports of the memo and calling the matter a "non issue".

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 Taliban and its Haqqani faction.

Pakistan's opposition leader Nawaz Sharif on Saturday demanded an independent commission to investigate the issue.

Copyright Reuters, 2011