Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Hussain Haqqani yet again denied writing or sending any secret memo to former US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Admiral Mike Mullen and termed it a conspiracy against him.
In a statement given to The Cable over email on Friday, Haqqani flatly denied all of the allegations made against him by Pakistani American businessman Mansoor Ijaz. “I refuse to accept Mr Ijaz’s claims and assertions. I did not write or deliver the memo he describes, nor did I authorise anyone including Mr Ijaz to do so,” he wrote. “I was in London and stayed at the Park Lane Intercontinental on the date in May mentioned in one of the alleged conversations but I was there to meet senior British government officials, including Sir David Richards, Chief of General Staff and Mr Tobias Ellwood, then parliamentary Secretary for Defence. These officials will confirm that threat of a coup was not on my mind at the time, the state of US-Pakistan relations was,” he added.
“I fail to understand why Mr Ijaz claims on the one hand to have helped the civilian government by delivering his memo and on the other insists on trying to destroy democracy by driving a wedge between elected civilians and the military in Pakistan with his persistent claims. It is bizarre to say the least,” he wrote further. Haqqani told The Cable that Mr Ijaz, whom he had known and communicated with off and on for 10 years, once said he was richer and smarter than Haqqani so he should pay attention to what he said. “Clearly he does not think about the consequences of his actions,” said Haqqani. “He may be the only so-called secret emissary in the world who likes so much publicity. He has yet to explain why, if all he says is correct, he wrote his Oct 10 op-ed and himself deliberately blew the cover off his own secret memo and mission,” said Haqqani. The ambassador claimed many people were against his posting in the US because a civilian ambassador had been appointed after a long time. He said he had no objections to the matter being investigated. Geo News reported late on Friday that Haqqani would reach Pakistan on Saturday evening.
No, I did not!
