Former UN Secretary-General Perez de Cuellar dies

Former UN chief Javier Perez de Cuellar, who was known for his peace-making efforts including brokering a ceasefire in the Iran-Iraq war, died on Wednesday in his native Peru, aged 100, his son said.

Perez de Cuellar served as UN secretary general from 1981 to 1991, when he was often described as a "pacifist by vocation and nature."

Javier Perez de Cuellar talks to reporters after his arrival to Lima, Peru. File photo/Reuters

Lauded by his countrymen as one of the most illustrious Peruvians of his era, Perez de Cuellar led the United Nations through a period marked by the fight against world hunger, the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq, as well as the civil war in US-supported El Salvador which led to UN-mediated peace talks.

"My dad died after a complicated week. He died at 8:09pm tonight (0109 GMT Thursday) and is resting in peace," his son Francisco Perez de Cuellar told RPP radio.

Perez de Cuellar was known for his efforts to reconcile warring parties.

He considered the 1990 independence of Namibia, one of the last colonial enclaves on the African continent, his greatest accomplishment as secretary general.

Perez de Cuellar's popularity prompted him to accept the presidential nomination from one of Peru's leading political parties -- the Union for Peru -- in 1995, which pitted him against then-incumbent president Alberto Fujimori.

Agence France-Presse