Iqbal Riza

former chief of staff, UN Sec. General Annan

Iqbal Riza was a diplomat from Pakistan for twenty years before he joined the UN Department of Public Information in 1980. He subsequently served as chief of various UN transition and observer field missions in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Bosnia Herzegovina, and he also held several senior UN political affairs posts. From March 1993 to January 1996 Mr. Riza was Assistant Secretary General in the Department of Peace keeping Operations, serving under Kofi Annan. After another field assignment, Mr. Annan appointed him as his Chief of Staff in January 1997, with the rank of Under Secretary General. He served in this post until he resigned in January 1995 in the midst of the Volcker Inquiry into the Oilfor Food scandal.