In a tribute to the Pakistan's late Foreign Minister Sahabzada Yaqub Khan, The New York Times on Friday lauded his diplomatic and political skills during his long service in diplomacy and as a military commander. Sam Roberts, a noted journalist wrote that Yaqub Khan was Pakistan's public face in international affairs for three decades.
He had helped facilitate President Richard M Nixon's overture to China in 1972. In the late 1980s, as a United Nations sanctioned envoy, he helped negotiate the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan and the windup of the civil war in Nicaragua. The report recalled that in 1999, William Safire, the New York Times Op-Ed columnist, described him as "the most skillful diplomat in the world."
"As Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, Yaqub Khan was one of several Muslim diplomats who interceded to end the so-called Hanafi siege in 1977, in which a breakaway group from the Nation of Islam seized three buildings and at least 134 hostages in Washington. A radio reporter was killed, and the remaining hostages were released after a 39-hour stand-off. "Yaqub Khan also served as Pakistan's envoy to the Soviet Union and France, and was Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar's United Nations special representative for Western Sahara."
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