People in diplomatic circles mourn Giandomenico Picco, who died at the age of 75 in a Connecticut care facility while being treated for Alzheimer's. Picco, originally from Flaibano in the province of Udine, worked for the United Nations from 1973 to 1992. Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar invited him to join its executive office in New York, where he was appointed to Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs. He was the chief negotiator of the Iraq-Iran deal, which ended an eight-year conflict that killed a million people in the 1980s; in Afghanistan, he helped facilitate the Soviet withdrawal in 1989; and his relationship with Iran allowed him to negotiate the release of hostages kidnapped by Hezbollah, including Terry Anderson, the head of the Associated Press in Beirut, who was held captive from 1985 to 1991. Finally, the Westerners were freed in exchange for the release of Lebanese prisoners in Israel. In an interview with the BBC, Picco characterized his duty as a UN diplomat as follows: "Unlike the diplomacy of the various governments, we do not try to score points in favor of one side or the other, but we would like to arrive at a situation in which in the end everyone wins". In 1991, George Bush gave him the Presidential Award for Exceptional Service.
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