Top US officials 'furious at Khalilzad'

Khalilzad had spoken by telephone with Asif Ali Zardari, the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, several times a week in the past month until he was confronted about the unauthorised contacts, a senior government official told the newspaper.

Other officials told the Times Khalilzad had planned to meet with Zardari next Tuesday while on vacation in Dubai.

The session was cancelled only after Richard Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South Asia, learned from Zardari himself that the ambassador was providing "advice and help."

"Can I ask what sort of 'advice and help' you are providing?" Boucher wrote in an angry e-mail message to Khalilzad.

"What sort of channel is this? Governmental, private, personnel?"

Copies of the email message were sent to The New York Times by an official

Officially, the United States has remained neutral in the contest to succeed Pervez Musharraf, who resigned from his role as Pakistan’s president earlier this month.

America’s State Department is worried that any discussions between Khalilzad and Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister, may look like America was taking sides in Pakistan’s chaotic internal politics, according to the New York Times.

Khalilzad had a close relationship with Bhutto, flying with her last summer on a private jet to Aspen in America.

Ms Bhutto was assassinated in Pakistan in December. America blamed the assassination on the head of Pakistan’s Taliban Baitullah Mehsud.

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.

Khalilzad, who was the Bush administration's first ambassador to Afghanistan, has also kept in close contact with Afghan officials, angering the current US ambassador William Wood, officials told the New York Times.

Khalilzad has denied speculation that plans to run for the Afghan presidency. His spokesman said he had been friends with Zardari for years.

"Ambassador Khalilzad had planned to meet socially with Zardari during his personal vacation," said Richard Grenell, the spokesman for the United States Mission to the United Nations.

"But because Zardari is now a presidential candidate, Ambassador Khalilzad postponed the meeting, after consulting with senior State Department officials and Zardari himself."

A senior American official said Khalilzad had been advised to "stop speaking freely" to Zardari, and that it was not clear whether he would face any disciplinary action.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's coalition government collapsed on Monday after Nawaz Sharif, leader of one of the country's two main parties, announced in Islamabad that his party was leaving the coalition.