Ace ambassador

Veteran Pakistani diplomat Jamsheed Kekobad Ardeshir Marker is listed in the Guinness World Records for being the world’s longest serving ambassador, with 30 consecutive years of service in 10 different capitals with further nine accreditations, reported the popular Internet portal Wik­i­­pedia. But this news is not accurate, clarified Mar­ker who was Pakis­tan’s top envoy to the United States.

Eighty-seven-year-old Marker who started his diplomatic career in 1965 was earlier working for his family’s shipping and pharmaceutical business. Besides English, the linguist speaks Urdu, Guja­rati, French, German and Russian. His first posting was as Pakistan High Commissioner to Ghana with concurrent accreditation to Guinea and Mali in 1965. Thereafter he represented Pakistan in Romania (with accreditation to Bulgaria), former Soviet Union (with accreditation to Finland), Canada (with accreditation to Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago), East Germany (with accreditation to Iceland), Japan, United Nations office at Geneva, West Germany, France, USA and finally the United Nations in New York city.

Jamsheed Marker: three decades of diplomacy

As ambassador to the United States in 1986 he is said to have helped negotiate the Soviet military withdrawal from Afghanistan. He also enjoyed the distinction of serving as United Nations under-secretary general as a special advisor to United Nations ex-secretary general Kofi Annan. For the last 15 years he has been teaching international relations at Eckerd College in St Petersburg, Florida.

His Bath Island home is surrounded by photos of world leaders he has met. "It’s like an interview with history as he unfolds chapter after chapter of world events in which he was a player dexterously mapping Pakistan’s course among the comity of nations,” notes an article on him.

"As a fighter in the Navy, I encountered danger and death. It made me strong. Life is all about determination, diligence and truth,” the ambassador told his interviewer. As compared to the leaders of yore, those today are "corrupt and surrounded by sycophants whose only job is flattery. It’s been the death of our value system. Few have the guts to speak the truth before the rulers.”

When asked how he had managed to be an ambassador to so many countries if he was not a sycophant, Marker responded, "All I can say is that I never jockeyed for a job. I really didn’t care and in fact each time the government changed, I resigned.” Altogether he is reported to have served two presidents, seven prime ministers, three chiefs of army staff and many foreign ministers. While his book Quiet Diplomacy is considered a brilliant memoir of the ambassador, the next one, tentatively titled "Outlook” will trace the social, developmental and political corrosion in Pakistan.