August 27, 2008	Wednesday	Sha'aban 24, 1429

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 26: The US Ambassador to the United Nations, Mr Zalmay Khalilzad, is in hot waters with other senior officials in the Bush administration over what they describe as his “unauthorised contacts” with Pakistan People’s Party leader Asif Ali Zardari, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.

Mr Khalilzad, the newspaper said, had spoken by telephone with Mr Zardari several times a week for the past month until he was confronted about the unauthorised contacts.

Officials said Mr Khalilzad had planned to meet Mr Zardari privately next Tuesday while on vacation in Dubai, in a session that was cancelled only after Richard A. Boucher, the Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, learned from Mr Zardari himself that the ambassador was providing ‘advice and help’.

“Can I ask what sort of ‘advice and help’ you are providing?” Mr Boucher wrote in an angry email message to Mr Khalilzad. “What sort of channel is this? Governmental, private, personal?”

Copies of the message were sent to others at the highest levels of the State Department; the message was provided to The New York Times by an administration official who had received a copy. A senior American official said that Mr Khalilzad had been advised to “stop speaking freely” to Mr Zardari, and that it was not clear whether he would face any disciplinary action.

The newspaper pointed out that officially the United States had remained neutral in the contest to succeed Mr Musharraf, and there was concern within the State Department that the discussions between Mr Khalilzad and Mr Zardari could leave the impression that the United States was taking sides in Pakistan’s chaotic internal politics.”

Mr Khalilzad also had a close relationship with Ms Bhutto, flying with her last summer on a private jet to a policy gathering in Aspen, Colorado.

The conduct by Mr Khalilzad, who is Afghan by birth, has also raised hackles because of speculation that he might seek to succeed Hamid Karzai as president of Afghanistan.Mr Khalilzad, who was the Bush administration’s first ambassador to Afghanistan, has also kept in close contact with Afghan officials, angering William Wood, the current American ambassador, said the official.

Mr Khalilzad has said he has no plans to seek the Afghan presidency.

The Times said the administration officials described John D.

Negroponte, the deputy secretary of state, and Mr Boucher as angry over the conduct of Mr Khalilzad because as United Nations ambassador he had no direct responsibility for American relations with Pakistan.