ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has expressed condolences on the passing of US senator John McCain. “Thoughts and prayers of the people of Pakistan are with the family and friends of Senator McCain,” a Foreign Office statement said. “Senator John McCain had an illustrious military and public service career and was admired across the spectrum of US politics as a man of integrity and a champion of civility,” the statement added. It continued, “As Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator McCain always stood for strong Pakistan-US relations and a cooperative approach for promoting peace and building stability in the region. He will be greatly missed in Pakistan.” McCain passed away at the age of 81 on Saturday night after battling glioblastoma – an aggressive brain cancer, discovered by his doctors in July 2017. A US senator from Arizona for over three decades, McCain was a former prisoner of war in Vietnam who ran unsuccessfully for president as a self-styled maverick Republican in 2008. Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he was a frequent critic as well as a target of his fellow Republican, Donald Trump, who was elected president in November 2016. On Friday, his family announced that McCain was discontinuing further cancer treatment. His wife, Cindy McCain, wrote: “My heart is broken. I am so lucky to have lived the adventure of loving this incredible man for 38 years. “He passed the way he lived, on his own terms, surrounded by the people he loved, in [the] place he loved best.” Published in Daily Times, August 27th 2018.