Pakistan's information minister withdrew her resignation Sunday, hours after she offered to quit amid tensions between the civilian government and the country's powerful military over a memo alleging an army plot to seize power in May. Information Minister Firdos Ashiq Awan made the surprise announcement at a televised cabinet meeting but Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani later persuaded her to withdraw resignation. “The prime minister tore down my resignation and asked me to continue my work,” Information Minister Firdos Ashiq Awan told reporters after the cabinet meeting. Some media reports suggested that Awan offered to resign over criticism within the ruling party over her perceived failure to defend the government in the “memogate” scandal, as it is being called in Pakistan. Mansoor Ijaz, an American businessman of Pakistan origin, wrote in a column in the Financial Times on Oct. 10 that a senior Pakistani diplomat had asked that a memo be delivered to the Pentagon with a plea for US help to stave off a military coup in the days after the raid that killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in May. Ijaz later identified the diplomat as Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, who denied involvement but resigned over the controversy. The scandal sent rumors have swirled in recent weeks that President Asif Ali Zardari, who left Pakistan for medical treatment in Dubai earlier this month, would be forced out by the military.
