By The New York Times (U.S.) | Created at 2024-10-24 19:25:56 | Updated at 2024-10-24 21:11:58
1 hour ago
Politics|Tina S. Kaidanow, 59, Diplomatic Force in Kosovo and Guantánamo, Dies
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/24/us/politics/tina-s-kaidanow-dead.html
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She was the first U.S. ambassador to a newly independent Balkans nation and recently oversaw the transfer of cooperating Guantánamo prisoners to third countries.
Carol Rosenberg has reported on Guantánamo Bay since the prison opened in 2002.
Oct. 24, 2024, 3:23 p.m. ET
Tina S. Kaidanow, a career diplomat who was the first U.S. ambassador to Kosovo following its independence in 2008, died on Oct. 14 in Washington. She was 59.
Her death, at Georgetown University Hospital, was caused by cardiac arrest, her brother, Eric Kaidanow, said. She had been hospitalized for three weeks while doctors there were trying to find the source of internal bleeding, he said.
Over three decades, Ms. Kaidanow held a number of foreign service and foreign policy jobs, including running the State Department’s counterterrorism and political-affairs bureaus and serving as deputy ambassador in Kabul, Afghanistan.
At her death, she was the State Department’s special representative for Guantánamo Affairs, overseeing and negotiating for the transfer of detainees from the prison at Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba to third countries.
In that capacity, she traveled to Belize in 2023 to personally thank the government there for taking in the prisoner Majid Khan, a former Pakistani courier for Al Qaeda who had turned government cooperator, as well as his wife and daughter.
Ms. Kaidanow joined Belize’s foreign minister at a news conference in Belize City that sought to reassure the public there that their new resident presented no threat. “If you encounter Mr. Khan anywhere, I hope you will say hello,” she told local reporters. “He is so happy to be here. He is very grateful.”
