Henry Kissinger: China pays tribute to ‘old friend’ as Putin hails ‘wise statesman’ following death of diplomat – latest updates

One of Kissinger’s arguably signature diplomatic accomplishments was laying the groundwork for the historic 1979 peace deal between Egypt and Israel, under Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin respectively.

It was following the Yom Kippur War in 1973 that Kissinger popularised his “shuttle diplomacy”, acting as a jet-setting mediator to help advance incremental peace talks among the two bitter enemies. This process eventually led to the 12 days of secret talks at Camp David, the country retreat of the US president – Jimmy Carter at the time – though Kissinger was no longer in office by then to see the culmination of his efforts.

This morning in Tel Aviv, while meeting the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the Israel president Isaac Herzog said Kissinger “laid the cornerstone of the peace agreement, which (was) later signed with Egypt, and so many other processes around the world I admire.”

Blinken, for his part, added that Kissinger “really set the standard for everyone who followed in this job” and that he was “very privileged to get his counsel many times, including as recently as about a month ago.”

“Few people were better students of history,” he said. “Even fewer people did more to shape history than Henry Kissinger.”

Not everyone has been nearly so effusive. On social media, some reaction to Kissinger’s passing on social media has tended more towards joyous celebration. Kissinger has frequently been described as a war criminal for his (frequently illegal) bombing campaigns and his history of overthrowing democratically elected governments in other countries, all the in the name of serving American interests.

In New York City last night at the corner of 5th Avenue and 53rd Street, at least some of the protesters gathered to protest the Israel-Hamas war reacted with jubilation when an organiser announced Kissinger’s death, after declaring that the largest transfer of military assistance to Israel happened under his watch.

As well as Putin, China and the US, leaders of Kissinger’s native Germany paid tribute. A Jew who fled Nazi rule with his family in his teens, Kissinger’s distinctive Bavarian accent made his pronouncements unmistakeable.

“His commitment to the transatlantic friendship between the USA and Germany was significant, and he always remained close to his German homeland,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote on X.

In a message of condolences to Kissinger’s family, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier wrote that “with his détente and disarmament policy, Henry Kissinger laid the foundation for the end of the Cold War and the democratic transition in eastern Europe” which led to Germany’s reunification.

Updated at 06.19 EST

Good morning, I’m Chris Michael in London.

The death of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the celebrity diplomat who popularised the concepts of realpolitik and shuttle diplomacy, has triggered a torrent of tributes and criticism alike for a record that is outsize as the anger he still inspires.

The death at 100 of a diplomatic giant, who told the BBC that at the age of 10 years old he remembered hearing the news that Hitler had been elected and who went on to advise 12 presidents from JFK to Joe Biden, ended decades of influence long after his official service to US presidents Nixon and Ford through his unique geopolitical consulting firm, Kissinger Associates.

His complicated legacy was reflected by the range of glowing praise that spilled out after his death – not just from former US presidents, but from China and Vladimir Putin, the Russian president.

Praised for negotiating the US reopening to what was then a closed China, and securing the American exit from the punishing war in Vietnam – for which he jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize – Kissinger has also been called a war criminal. He supported Indonesia’s military dictator in the invasion of East Timor and backed the invasion of Angola by the apartheid regime in South Africa. Perhaps most notoriously, he worked with the CIA to overthrow the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, in a coup that installed the brutal dictator Augusto Pinochet.

“America has lost one of the most dependable and distinctive voices” on foreign affairs, said former President George W Bush. “I have long admired the man who fled the Nazis as a young boy from a Jewish family, then fought them in the United States Army. When he later became Secretary of State, his appointment as a former refugee said as much about his greatness as it did America’s greatness.”

In China, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin called Kissinger an “old friend and good friend of the Chinese people, and a pioneer and builder of China-US relations.”

Putin, meanwhile, said in a message to Kissinger’s wife that he was “a wise and far-sighted statesman” and his name “is inextricably linked with a pragmatic foreign policy line, which at one time made it possible to achieve detente in international tensions and reach the most important Soviet-American agreements that contributed to the strengthening of global security.”

Updated at 06.29 EST