Profile: Richard Holbrooke

Richard Holbrooke will work closely with Islamabad and Kabul

Richard Holbrooke is best known as the architect of the 1995 Dayton peace accords that ended three years of war in Bosnia.

He is also credited with averting a possible military confrontation between Greece and Turkey in a dispute over an uninhabited Aegean Sea islet a year later.

Nicknamed "the Bulldozer", Mr Holbrooke has gained a reputation for confronting warring leaders to get them to come to the negotiating table.

These skills will be tested again in his new role as US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Pear brandies

Mr Holbrooke was born in New York in 1941, and is of German-Jewish descent. He was educated at Brown University and is married to the writer Kati Marton.

He began his diplomatic career in Vietnam, and has served as assistant secretary of state for Asia as well as US ambassador to Germany.

It was while he was assistant secretary of state for European and Canadian affairs, between 1994 and 1996, that he went to Bosnia as part of a peace-seeking delegation.

I make no apologies for negotiating with Milosevic and even worse people, provided one doesn't lose one's point of view Richard Holbrooke in 1999

Over the course of various protracted and often difficult negotiations, Mr Holbrooke developed a rapport with then Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. They were said to have been on first name terms.

There were stories of Mr Holbrooke sipping a mid-morning pear brandy with Mr Milosevic at the peace talks in Dayton, Ohio.

Mr Milosevic also reportedly hosted the US diplomat for an 11-hour dinner near Belgrade at the former hunting lodge of long-time Yugoslav President Tito.

Mr Holbrooke said he had no moral qualms about "negotiating with people who do immoral things".

"If you can prevent the deaths of people still alive, you're not doing a disservice to those already killed trying to do so," he said in 1999.

"And so I make no apologies for negotiating with Milosevic and even worse people, provided one doesn't lose one's point of view."

His success at Dayton saw him nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize - one of several such nominations he has received over his career.

Although his 1999 mission to persuade Mr Milosevic to remove his troops from Kosovo failed, it did not damage his reputation as one of the best and toughest US diplomats.

Wall street career

While admired for his first-class intellect, Mr Holbrooke's robust and combative style made him enemies in the US government.

In 1997, he was widely tipped to become secretary of state, but lost out to Madeleine Albright.

A year later, he was nominated by then President Bill Clinton as US ambassador to the United Nations.

But his appointment was delayed for more than a year while a federal ethics probe was carried out over his lucrative second career on Wall Street.

Since stepping down from his role at the UN in 2001, Mr Holbrooke has served as vice-chairman for a private equity firm.

He also advised Senator John Kerry during his presidential campaign in 2004, as well as Hillary Clinton in her bid for the Democratic nomination in the 2008 campaign.

Now, he and Mrs Clinton - in her new role as Secretary of State - will work closely together to try to get Kabul and Islamabad to join forces in the battle against the region's resurgent Taliban and al-Qaeda militant groups.