Cardinal Pio Laghi, a long-time Vatican diplomat, who on behalf of Pope John Paul II held talks in 2003 with US President George W Bush in an unsuccessful a bid to prevent the US-led invasion of Iraq, has died, the Vatican said Sunday. He was 86, dpa reported.
Laghi, who had been ill for some time, died Saturday evening in Rome's St Charles of Nancy hospital, the ANSA news agency reported.
He was credited in 1978 for helping to avert a war between the mostly Roman Catholic nations of Chile and Argentina over a territorial dispute involving several islands in the Beagle Channel.
However, during his posting as Vatican nuncio to Buenos Aires which lasted from 1974-80, Laghi was accused by some of not raising his voice against atrocities committed by Argentina's ruling military junta.
Laghi, who in the 1980s served as the Vatican's ambassador in Washington, in 2003 delivered a letter from John Paul pressing Bush not to go to war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
Born in Castiglione di Forli, Italy, Laghi had a long career in the Vatican diplomatic corps, beginning with a 1952 posting to Nicaragua.
He later served in India, Jerusalem and the Palestinian Territories, Cyprus, Greece and Argentina, before being named envoy to Washington in 1980.
He was recalled to Rome to serve as prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education in the early 1990s.
