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Ambassador Vitaly Churkin

MOSCOW/UNITED NATIONS. – Zimbabwe pays special tribute to a diplomatic giant, Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, who died in New York on Monday (the eve of his birthday), for the sterling job he performed as Russia’s top diplomat at the United Nations from 2006 up to the time of his death.Mr Churkin died suddenly after falling ill at his New York office. He was taken to hospital on Monday, where he died, Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Vladimir Safronkov said.

The late Russian UN permanent representative was born on February 21, 1952 and would have turned 65 yesterday.

On July 11, 2008 Russia together with China as permanent members of the UN Security Council vetoed “a draft resolution calling for sanctions on Zimbabwe, including a travel ban and assets freeze on President Mugabe and 12 other individuals.”

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered his condolences over the sudden death of the Russian permanent representative to the UN, the president’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov said.

“The president was grieved to learn about the death of Vitaly Churkin,” he said. “The head of state highly estimated Churkin’s professionalism and diplomatic talents.”

“The president expressed condolences to his family and to the Russian foreign ministry over Vitaly Churkin’s death,” he said. President Putin’s condolences were posted on the Kremlin’s official website.

United Nations secretary general Antonio Guterres has led tributes to Russia’s ambassador to the world body.

The veteran diplomat was known as a potent, savvy, yet personable voice for his country’s interests who could both spar and get along with his Western counterparts.

As Russia’s envoy at the United Nations since 2006 and a diplomat for decades, Mr Churkin was considered Moscow’s great champion at the UN, where he was the longest-serving ambassador on the powerful Security Council.

Calling him “an outstanding diplomat”, Mr Guterres said: “Ambassador Churkin served the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation with distinction through some of the most challenging and momentous periods of recent history.”

Diplomatic colleagues from around the world mourned Mr Churkin as a master in their field – a passionate and effective advocate for his country, an intellectual with a doctorate in history who was also a one-time child actor with an acute wit, and a formidable adversary who could remain a friend.

“We did not always see things the same way, but he unquestionably advocated his country’s positions with great skill,” US ambassador Nikki Haley said.

Her predecessor Samantha Power described him on Twitter as a “diplomatic maestro and deeply caring man” who had done all he could to bridge differences between the US and Russia.

Those differences were evident when Ms Power and Mr Churkin spoke at the Security Council last month, when she lashed out at Russia for annexing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and carrying out “a merciless military assault” in Syria.

Mr Churkin accused former US president Barack Obama’s administration, which Ms Power served, of “desperately” searching for scapegoats for its failures in Iraq, Syria and Libya.

Mr Churkin died weeks into some major adjustments for Russia, the UN and the international community, with a new secretary general at the world body and a new administration in Washington.

From Moscow’s vantage point “Churkin was like a rock against which were broken the attempts by our enemies to undermine what constitutes the glory of Russia”, Tass quoted deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying.

Mr Churkin’s UN counterparts “experienced and respected the pride that he took in serving his country and the passion and, at times, very stern resolution that he brought to his job”, said General Assembly president Peter Thomson, of Fiji.

But colleagues also respected Mr Churkin’s intellect, diplomatic skills, good humour and consideration for others, Mr Thomson said.

Britain’s UN ambassador Matthew Rycroft recalled “a diplomatic giant and wonderful character” and former French UN ambassador Gerard Araud, now French ambassador to the US, described Mr Churkin as “abrasive, funny and technically impeccable”.

Mr Churkin emerged as the face of a new approach to foreign affairs by the Soviet Union in 1986, when he gave evidence before the US Congress about the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster.

It was rare for any Soviet official to appear before Congress.

In fluent English, he provided little new information about Chernobyl, but engaged in a friendly, sometimes humorous, exchange with politicians unaccustomed to such a tone, or to a representative in a fashionably well-fitting suit and a stylish haircut, from the USSR.

After he returned to the foreign ministry in Moscow, he ably dodged questions and parried with Western correspondents, often with a smile, at briefings in the early 1990s.

Within the government, he proved himself an able and flexible presence who survived numerous course changes after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and held ambassadorships in Canada and Belgium, among other posts.

Mr Churkin told Russia Today in an interview this month that diplomacy had become “much more hectic”, with political tensions rising and stability elusive in various hotspots.

At the time, he looked in good health, reporter Alexey Yaroshevsky tweeted. – AP/UN News Centre/HR.