Jamsheed K. A. Marker

Jamsheed Kekobad Ardeshir Marker was born in 1922 into a Parsi family associated with shipping and pharmaceuticals. Educated at the Doon School and Forman Christian College, he became familiar to Pakistani listeners as a cricket commentator alongside Omar Kureishi before entering diplomacy in 1965. His first assignment was Ghana. Over the following decades he represented Pakistan in countries including the Soviet Union, Canada, Japan, West Germany, and France, as well as at the UN offices in Geneva. ^{1, 2}

Ambassador in Washington from 1986 to 1989, Marker worked on the Afghan war and the negotiations surrounding Soviet withdrawal. In December 1988 he asked Under Secretary of State Michael Armacost for an account of the Reagan–Gorbachev meeting. Armacost told him that Afghanistan had not been discussed at the summit and that Washington expected Moscow to meet its February withdrawal deadline. ^{3, 7}

The partnership also faced disputes over Pakistan's nuclear program. After the 1987 arrest of Arshed Pervez for attempted nuclear related procurement, American agencies disagreed over how strongly to confront Islamabad. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency director Kenneth Adelman criticized the proposed message to Marker as too mild and asked for a stronger warning. ⁴

After Washington, he represented Pakistan at the United Nations in New York. In February 1997 Kofi Annan appointed him personal representative for East Timor. Marker conducted negotiations involving Indonesia, Portugal, and East Timorese leaders. In January 1999 he chaired talks with the two governments' senior officials; agreements that May established the process for a UN organized vote on autonomy. Voters rejected the proposal in August, opening the path toward independence, although widespread violence followed the ballot. ^{2, 5, 6, 7}

Marker recorded his diplomatic career in Quiet Diplomacy, published in 2010. His work and public life also remained closely connected to the Zoroastrian community: FEZANA gave him its lifetime achievement award in 2007. He died on June 21, 2018. ^{1, 7}