News
Ijaz accepts involvement in back-door diplomacy
KARACHI: Mansoor Ijaz, a key player in the memogate controversy has accepted his historical involvement in back-channel diplomacy, particularly between the governments of Pakistan and India on the subject of Kashmir and nuclear proliferation.He disclosed this in his article due to be published on December 5 in a US magazine.
The US based businessman has also provided an analysis about the recent infamous memo controversy in his article and said that former ambassador Husain Haqqani had tried other interlocutors to deliver the memo to Adm Mike Mullen and had been refused.
“What I am certain of is that Haqqani believed I was the most plausibly deniable back channel he could use. He knew I was disliked by many in Islamabad’s power circles for my strong anti-establishment views. Haqqani also knew I had the connections to get the message quickly and quietly to Mullen. He knew I maintained friendships with former CIA director James Woolsey, former US national-security adviser Gen. James L. Jones, Reagan “Star Wars” commander Lt. Gen. James Abrahamson, and others,” writes Ijaz.
Mentioning about the Oct 10 BlackBerry communication between him and Haqqani, he wrote: “This FT op-ed of yours is a disaster,” read a BlackBerry message to me on the night of Oct. 10.
The sender, Husain Haqqani, was still Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington at the time. Earlier in the evening, the Financial Times had posted my column—“Time to Take On Pakistan’s Jihadist Spies”—on its website, unleashing a political firestorm in Pakistan over my disclosure of a memorandum Haqqani had asked me to help him prepare and deliver to Adm. Mike Mullen, then chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.”
Courtesy www.geo.tv