No. 3 U.S. Diplomat, Lead Negotiator on Iran, Retires
By HELENE COOPER
WASHINGTON — R. Nicholas Burns, the country’s third-ranking diplomat and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s right-hand man, is retiring for personal reasons, the State Department said Friday.
The White House said that it was nominating William J. Burns, the United States ambassador to Russia, to replace him as under secretary of state for political affairs. The two men are not related. Like R. Nicholas Burns, William Burns is a career Foreign Service official. He has served as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs as well as ambassador to Jordan.
“This is a very bittersweet time for us because Nick Burns has decided that it is time for him to retire,” Ms. Rice said in announcing Mr. Burns’s resignation in the State Department’s ornate Treaty Room. “He has decided that it’s the right moment to go back to family concerns.”
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