Pakistani ambassador to U.S. mired in controversy

ISLAMABAD — The Pakistani government said Thursday that it has not decided whether to accept a resignation offer from its ambassador to the U.S. 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 government has summoned Ambassador Husain Haqqani to Islamabad to question him about any role he may have played in the growing controversy, which was first disclosed in an Oct. 10 column in the Financial Times, said Farhatullah Babar, a Pakistani presidential spokesman.

Mansoor Ijaz, a U.S. citizen of Pakistani origin, said in the column that a senior Pakistani diplomat asked him on May 9 — a week after U.S. commandos killed bin Laden in a Pakistani garrison town — to pass a message from President Asif Ali Zardari to the U.S. asking for help.

Ijaz did not name the diplomat.

Zardari was reportedly worried that the U.S. raid had so humiliated his government, which did not know about it beforehand, that the military may stage a coup — something that has happened repeatedly in Pakistan's history, said Ijaz.

The memo sent to Adm. Mike Mullen, the top U.S. military officer at the time, reportedly offered to curb support to Islamist militants from Pakistan's military intelligence service, the ISI, in exchange for American assistance, Ijaz said.

The Pakistani Foreign Ministry has called the Financial Times column "a total fabrication."

But Mullen's spokesman, Capt. John Kirby, confirmed to Foreign Policy's website Wednesday that Mullen did receive the memo from Ijaz, but he did not find it credible and ignored it.

"Adm. Mullen had no recollection of the memo and no relationship with Mr. Ijaz," Kirby said.