Riaz Hussain Khokhar

Riaz Hussain Khokhar spent much of his diplomatic career dealing with Pakistan’s immediate neighbors. He served in New Delhi as political counsellor and deputy chief of mission from 1980 to 1985, returned as high commissioner from 1992 to 1997, and also headed Pakistan’s mission in Bangladesh. His later ambassadorial assignments took him to Washington and Beijing. ¹

Pakistan’s nuclear tests in May 1998 made nonproliferation and American sanctions central to Khokhar’s Washington work. Speaking at Harvard in March 1999, he defended the tests as a response to India’s, while arguing that nuclear weapons did not improve either country’s security. He urged the United States and United Nations to encourage negotiations and linked disarmament to resolving the Kashmir dispute. ²

He was ambassador during Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s hurried visit to President Bill Clinton in July 1999 amid the Kargil fighting. After his posting in China, Khokhar became foreign secretary in 2002. His tenure included the 2003 ceasefire along the Line of Control and the 2004 South Asian summit in Islamabad, when India and Pakistan resumed a wider diplomatic dialogue. ¹

In a 2018 interview, Khokhar recalled the difficulty of representing Pakistan under extensive US sanctions and argued that disagreement still required sustained engagement with Washington. He died in Islamabad on 26 December 2023. ^{1, 3}