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PM Narendra Modi expresses 'profound sorrow' at passing away of Kofi Annan

Annan served two terms as UN Secretary-General in New York from 1997-2006 and retired in Geneva and later lived in a Swiss village in the nearby countryside.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday expressed profound sorrow at the death of former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, describing him as not only a great African diplomat and humanitarian but also a conscience keeper of international peace and security.

"We express our profound sorrow at the passing away of Nobel laureate and former UNSG Kofi Annan. The world has lost not only a great African diplomat and humanitarian but also a conscience keeper of international peace and security," PM Modi said on Twitter.

"Kofi Annan's significant contribution to the MDGs (Millenium Development Goals) will always be remembered. My thoughts are with his family and admirers in this hour of grief. May his soul rest in peace," PM Modi said in another tweet.

 

Kofi Annan, who served two terms as UN Secretary General from January 1, 1997, to December 31, 2006, died at the age of 80. His foundation announced his death in Switzerland on Saturday in a tweet, saying that he died after a short unspecified illness.

Annan, of Ghanaian nationality, died in hospital in Bern, Switzerland, in the early hours of Saturday, two close associates of Annan said.

Annan served two terms as UN Secretary-General in New York from 1997-2006 and retired in Geneva and later lived in a Swiss village in the nearby countryside.

"In many ways, Kofi Annan was the United Nations. He rose through the ranks to lead the organization into the new millennium with matchless dignity and determination," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, whom Annan had chosen to head the U.N. refugee agency, said in a statement. 

As head of UN peacekeeping operations, Annan was criticised for the world body's failure to halt the genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s. 

As UN boss he was linked to peace efforts to reunite the divided island of Cyprus. He submitted a reunification blueprint for Cyprus which was rejected in a referendum by Greek Cypriots in 2004. 

"The UN can be improved, it is not perfect but if it didn't exist you would have to create it," he told the BBC's Hard Talk during an interview for his 80th birthday last April, recorded at the Geneva Graduate Institute where he had studied.

"I am a stubborn optimist, I was born an optimist and will remain an optimist," Annan added.

(With PTI and Reuters inputs)

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