Abdul Rahman Pazhwak

Abdul Rahman Pazhwak (born March 7, 1919 – June 8, 1995) was a diplomat, poet and writer in Pashto and Dari. Born in 1919 in Ghazni and educated Nangarhar and at Habibia High School in Kabul, he started a career as journalist, but eventually joined the foreign ministry. He was editor of Islah (q.v., 1939), director general of the Pashto Academy in 1941.

in 1946, he was named Cultural and Press Attaché of the Royal Afghan Embassy in London. The following year, He joined the Information section of the International Labour Organisation, where he remained for two years. In 1949, he returned to his country's diplomatic service and became Cultural and Press Attaché of the Royal Afghan Embassy in Washington. He remained there until 1951 when he returned to Kabul to take over the position or Director of the Asian and African Affairs Section and to serve as acting Director of the United Nations Section of Ministry of Foreign Affairs political Department.

In 1957, he was appointed Director-General of the Political Affairs Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a post he hold until his appointment as Afghanistan's Permanent Representative to the United Nations. He has been Chairman of his country's delegation to each session of the General Assembly since the thirteenth in 1958.

Mr. Pazhwak represented Afghanistan on the Economic and Social Council from 1959 to 1961. He was a member of the Commission on Human Rights from 1961 to 1963, serving as Chairman in the latter year.

In 1963, he served as Chairman of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission to Vietnam, sent to examine the relations between the Government of the Republic of Vietnam and the Vietnamese Buddhist community. He was Chairman of the Adhoc Committee on Oman in 1964.

During the early 1970s he served for short periods as Afghan ambassador to West Germany and India. In 1976 he became ambassador to the United Kingdom. He served in that position until the 1978 communist coup. He then returned to Afghanistan and was put under house arrest. He was allowed to leave for medical treatment in 1982. He received asylum in the United States, where he lived until 1991, when he moved to Peshawar, Pakistan.

Mr. Pazhwak has represented Afghanistan at several international conferences, including the Bandung Conference in 1955, the Preparatory Conference of Foreign Ministers held in Cairo in 1961, and the Belgrade Conference of Nan-Aligned Nations in 1961. He headed the Afghan delegation to the conferences of Foreign Ministers in Djakarta,1964, and Algiers, 1965. He was also a member of the delegation of Afghanistan to the Second Conference of Non-Aligned Nations, held in Cairo in 1964.

Mr. Pazhwak was President and is now an honorary member of the Royal Afghan Academy of Literature. He has also been a member of the Society of Historical Studies of Afghanistan.

Abdul Rahman Pazhwak died in Hayatabad of Peshawar in Pakistan on the 8/06/1995, equivalent to 18/03/1374 Hijri Shamsi and 10th of Moharamul Haram 1416 Hijri Qamari Islamic calendars. When he died, he was 76 years of age and was buried in Baghwani Village of Surkh rud of Nangahar Province in Afghanistan.