Aziz Ahmed, HPk, HQA (born 1906 - died 1982) was a career civil servant who was a close ally of former Presidents Muhammad Ayub Khan and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Aziz Ahmed was born in Taran Taran tehsil of Amritsar district in 1906 and educated at Government College, Lahore and subsequently at the University of Cambridge and was a senior member of the Indian Civil Service (ICS) and later Civil Service of Pakistan (CSP). He served in Bengal prior to partition (1947) and was instrumental in getting the Debt Alleviation Act of 1935 passed into legislation. Aziz Ahmed subsequently held several senior positions in successive administrations in newly-independent Pakistan. He was appointed as the first Chief Secretary of East Bengal at a time when General Muhammad Ayub Khan was the General Officer Commanding for East Bengal. The two developed a close friendship and when Ayub Khan declared martial law and assumed full powers in 1958, Aziz Ahmed was made the highest ranking civil servant in his government as Secretary General Cabinet Division and Deputy Martial Law Administrator. Subsequently he was sent as Pakistan Ambassador to the United States in 1959 and was instrumental in developing the strong ties between the two countries, that characterized the Eisenhower/Kennedy administrations of the early sixties. He returned in 1963 to take up the post of Foreign Secretary at a time when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was the Foreign Minister. He gained further prominence at the national level in Pakistan, following the 1965 war with India. He was opposed to the signing of the Tashkent Declaration by Ayub Khan as was Bhutto. He retired from government service in 1966 and was assigned to head the National Press Trust ans was also Chairman of the Board of Governors of the National Institute of Public Administration . Zulfikar Ali Bhutto took over as President of Pakistan and shortly thereafter summoned Aziz Ahmed out of retirement and appointed him Secretary General at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in December 1971. Subsequently Aziz Ahmed was regarded as one of Bhutto's closest confidantes as Minister of State for Defence and Foreign Affairs and finally as Foreign Minister for a few months, before the government was toppled in the military coup of 1977. Aziz Ahmed assisted in negotiating the Simla Agreement between Pakistan and India in 1972 and organizing the Islamic Summit in 1974, where he headed Pakistan's delegation. As Minister of Defence, he played a key role in re-building Pakistan's defence capability after the 1971 war with India as well as the development of the country's nuclear programme. He remained a staunch opponent of the martial law regime of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq until he died in 1982. He was a recipient of Pakistan's high civil awards, Hilal-e-Pakistan and Hilal-i-Quaid-i-Azam. On his death, he was survived by his wife Shereen Ahmed, two sons and two daughters.
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