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Ismat Kittani, Iraqi Diplomat Who Served Five U.N. Secretaries-General, Dies at 71
Ismat Kittani, an Iraqi diplomat who was president of the U.N. General Assembly and served five U.N. secretaries-general, died of cancer in Geneva, U.N. officials said Wednesday. He was 71.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Kittani "a cherished member of our United Nations family ... (who) performed many sensitive missions with the utmost skill and judgment."
"Both in the service of his country and as an official of the United Nations ... he was a consummate diplomat, combining the discretion of the international civil servant with an intimate knowledge of the intergovernmental process," Annan said in a statement.
Kittani, who died Tuesday, was born in Amadia, Iraq. He graduated from Knox College in Galesburg, Il., with a bachelor's degree in political science and English. He worked briefly as a high school teacher in Iraq before joining the foreign service in 1952.
He served as Iraq's U.N. envoy in Geneva from 1961 to 1964, undersecretary in the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1980 to 1985, and as Iraq's U.N. ambassador in New York from 1985 until his retirement from the diplomatic service in 1989.
From 1981 to 1982, he was president of the 36th U.N. General Assembly.
While in the foreign service, Kittani was loaned to the United Nations from 1964 to 1975. During that period, he served as director of the executive office of Secretary-General U Thant and Cabinet chief for Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.
After he left the diplomatic service, he served as a consultant to Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar from 1989 to 1991. The next year, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali appointed him special representative for Somalia. Kittani also served as an adviser to Annan.
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