Yuli Vorontsov

Yuli Vorontsov’s diplomatic service began in 1952 and spanned the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation. Early assignments at the United Nations were followed by more than a decade in the Washington embassy, where he served as counselor and minister-counselor from 1966 to 1977. He later headed embassies in India and France, became first deputy foreign minister, and served in Afghanistan in 1988–1989. ¹

Vorontsov worked directly in the confidential channel between Henry Kissinger and the Soviet leadership. On 5 December 1971, acting for the absent Anatoly Dobrynin, he received Nixon’s warning that the India–Pakistan war threatened broader American-Soviet relations. Vorontsov asked whether he could transmit a constructive American proposal for a political settlement and undertook to report the exchange to Moscow. The conversation also touched on plans for Kissinger to visit the Soviet capital before the presidential summit. ²

Vorontsov represented the Soviet Union and then Russia at the United Nations in 1990–1994, returning to Washington as ambassador in 1994–1998. He joined Boris Yeltsin's delegation at the 27 September 1994 security talks with Bill Clinton. Their agenda included conventional forces in Europe, Russian arms sales to Iran, Bosnia, and the security of nuclear materials. ^{1, 3}

In February 2000 he took on a different task for the United Nations: coordinating efforts to resolve the fate of Kuwaitis and other nationals missing after Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait, and to recover seized property and archives. Saddam Hussein’s government initially denied him access to Iraq. His mandate continued after the regime’s fall, when the Security Council directed him to pursue the unresolved cases. Vorontsov died in 2007. ^{4, 1}