With Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani at the centre of a controversy surrounding the ‘secret memo’ allegedly sent by President Asif Ali Zardari to the US administration seeking help against a possible military coup, a proposal is being discussed among the ruling circles here to replace Haqqani with Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir.
Pakistani officials privy to Tuesday’s meetings at the Presidency between President Zardari and Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and the president and US Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter, as well as those who are following the developments related to the ‘memo’, say that Ambassador Haqqani is in trouble but he is still confident that he will sail through owing to his strong connections in Washington and Islamabad.
Haqqani has decided to stay for some days in Washington after being asked by the government to travel to Islamabad for a briefing on Pakistan-US relations and he is keenly monitoring the evolving situation as he knows that the army leadership has placed him at the centre stage of the memo controversy and his continuation as the Pakistani envoy in Washington is not a desirable option for ‘Rawalpindi’.
“One option that is being discussed in Islamabad among the ruling circles and the military leaders is to replace Ambassador Haqqani by Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir, who is to retire in March next year,” said an official here on Wednesday, requesting anonymity. However, he hastened to add that it would still be very difficult to state that Haqqani’s days were numbered as he enjoyed strong connections with important people in Washington and they would like him to stay in his office in the current state of relations between Pakistan and the US, which were passing through a critical juncture. Another official here said Ambassador Haqqani was also confident that he would stay as envoy in Washington because of his strong ties to the Presidency. Ambassador Haqqani found himself in the eye of the storm when Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz came up with his ‘revelations’ about President Zardari’s alleged endeavours to reach out to the Obama administration to stop the army from a coup in the wake of the US raid that killed al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad on May 2. Ijaz claimed that he was asked to contact the US administration by a senior Pakistani official. He did not name Ambassador Haqqani but the military authorities are said to have concluded that the current Pakistani envoy in Washington was the official who came in contact with Ijaz.
The Presidency and the Foreign Office denied Ijaz’s claims, saying no such memo or letter was sent to the US administration. Ijaz claims he has the copy of letter and all other related material.
What happened? A deal went bad with Ijaz?
I think an early election may be the only way to cleanup the mess created by the US/Haqanni gang members
Zardari is clever , he sees what threats are imminent to his throne, Kiyani may be waiting for a go ahed signal from US, but now the cat is out of the bag, the rest of teh charatcters are just sideliners, and if it turns that way we can confirm that paksitan is actually bieng run by the USA.
With reference to so called memo It is not new that President Zardari is the first who asked US for help, as narrated by some media section. According to same media we have example in the recent past that a former army chief Pervaz Mussaraf also requested PM of that time for an urgent help of US because of the result of Kargal. So I mean both the civilian and army are looking to US for their intrests when they need it. The need to understand the present crises, WHAT IS BEHIND ALL THIS SITUATION.
shameless person…………….
ab tera kiya hoga laliya
hiu write this story but hw could we find itadn i m new user of this site plz inrfom me more about it
kliya lolz
alas Dear Haqqani –When two elephants fight the land grass suffer
it is a bad luck 2 Pakistan that nobody is loyal 2 the country. A visionary leader does not exist 2 bail us out
Comments are closed.