Veteran US diplomat Richard Holbrooke passes away

Veteran US diplomat, and also the government's special representative for the Afghanistan and Pakistan region (Af-Pak), Richard C Holbrooke, died Monday evening at age 69 in Washington. His passing away was confirmed by the US administration.

Holbrooke was hospitalized on Friday afternoon after taking ill in a meeting with secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, in her Washington office. He underwent a long surgery to repair a tear to his aorta but remained in very critical condition until his death.

In an outstanding career, Holbrooke, worked for every Democratic administration since the late 1960s and achieved considerable fame as a trouble-shooter, in particular for the successful negotiations that ended the war in Bosnia, formerly Yugoslavia. These negotiations are also referred to as the Daytona Peace Accord.

He was currently engaged by the Obama administration as special envoy to the Afghanistan- Pakistan region, which is perhaps the world's most troubled hotspot. As special representative Af-Pak, to use a commonly applied abbreviation, Holbrooke was frequent traveller to the region and off and on his travels also brought him to Delhi, which holds significant influence in the region.

Holbrooke arrived in the Af-Pak region with a massive reputation backing him as a brilliant, though abrasive interlocutor who had exhibited tendencies of a bully, inclined to bulldoze his way through negotiations. Certainly his physical demeanour, a large physique, aided his acquired reputation. But for his admirers, which included a number of presidents, his achievements in the field of diplomacy were extraordinary.

Early on, he found himself caught in the evolving conflict in Vietnam where he spent six long years -first in the Mekong Delta with the United States Agency for International Development, then at the US embassy in Saigon and finally as part of the  American delegation to the 1968-69 Paris peace talks led by W Averell Harriman and Cyrus R Vance.