Husain Haqqani, Pakistan ambassador, denies pleading for US help to stop coup (VIDEO)

Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, has denied involvement in a mysterious memo from the country's civilian government asking America's help to ward off a military coup.

The memo purportedly contains a plea from President Asif Ali Zardari's government in May, just after the Pakistan military "suffered humiliation over the American raid into Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden," The New York Times wrote.

It was addressed to then US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike Mullen and, according to the Times, contained a promise to — in return for help — dismantle a part of the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI, "which some American officials have come to distrust." 

Mansoor Ijaz, an American of Pakistani origin based in Zurich, told Reuters on Friday that he wrote the memo and sent it to the Pentagon on the instructions of Haqqani.

Mullen’s former spokesman, Capt. John Kirby, said Wednesday that the memo was delivered, but that Mullen "did not find the memo at all credible" and so "addressed it with no one," the Times reported. 

The Financial Times has published the memo, and says the so-called "memogate" affair has "thrust a long-running power struggle between civilians and the military into the open" and could threaten the administration of Zardari.

According to Reuters:

That Zardari wants to exert greater civilian control over the powerful military is an open secret in the capital, Islamabad.

But the memo, which the Pakistan ambassador denies writing, would appear to show the civilian government trying to bring the United States in on its side in the struggle with the military, which has ruled Pakistan for more than half its history.

Haqqani, meantime, has offered to resign over the affair.

I serve at the pleasure of the president of Pakistan and the prime minister," he told CNN. "I have communicated my willingness to resign or participate in any inquiry that brings an end to the vilification against the democratic government of Pakistan currently being undertaken by some elements in the country."

The Express Tribune reported that he was sceduled to board a flight home late Friday. The Express interviewed Haqqani on camera.

In it he denies not only involvement, but the existence of a "credible" memo seeking American help. He said any such memo might have been "meant to create a crisis in Pakistan."

"I read the memo for the first time today, and I was not involved in this." Adding, "Ijaz is a very rich, influential man, he has drafted the memo and managed to deliver it to Admiral Mullen."