ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has appointed a former army chief as its new ambassador to the United States following its former envoy Ashraf Jehangir Qazi's assignment to Iraq as the United Nations' special envoy, officials said.

General Jehangir Karamat's appointment has been approved by Washington, foreign ministry spokesman Masood Khan said on Thursday (Sept 23).

Karamat led Pakistan's army from 1996 to 1998, when he quit after falling out with then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif over his demand that the military be given a formal role in government.

He was succeeded by his close friend General Pervez Musharraf, who went on to topple Sharif in a bloodless coup one year later and eventually declared himself president.

Since his retirement Karamat has been closely associated with US think tanks at Stanford University and the Brookings Institution.

Karamat was accused in February by Pakistan's disgraced nuclear program architect Abdul Qadeer Khan of pressuring him to pass nuclear secrets to Iran and North Korea.

The allegations were made by Khan in an 11-page statement confessing to nuclear proliferation, a senior military official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Musharraf told a February news conference that Karamat and another former army chief, Mirza Aslam Beg, were questioned, but there was no evidence of their involvement in the nuclear leaks.

Karamat fought in the 1965 and 1971 wars with rival India and commanded Pakistani forces in Saudi Arabia from 1985 to 1988.

He is a graduate of the Pakistan Army Command and Staff College, the National Defense College, and the US Army Command and General Staff College.

Pakistan is one of Washington's most crucial allies in the war on terror, having captured around 600 Al-Qaeda suspects in the past three years, including top Osama bin Laden aides and two self-proclaimed architects of the September 11 terror attacks.

Courtesy Agence France Presse