Memoirs of Abdulaziz Khoja… from the Soviet Collapse to Mysterious Murder Attempts in Turkey

In his new book, Abdulaziz Mohieddin Khoja recounts key events that marked his long career in diplomacy, politics and media, during which he took the position of Saudi ambassador to Turkey, Morocco (twice), Russia and Lebanon, before his appointment as Minister of Culture and Information.

The book, published by Jadawel publishing, translation and distribution house in Beirut, unveils secrets of Ambassador Khoja’s diplomatic work and his description of some of the most prominent political leaders whom he met in his journey.

Ahead of the book’s publication, Asharq Al-Awsat brings out in two episodes, parts of Khoja’s memoirs (277 pages).

The first episode talks about Khoja’s diplomatic career in Ankara, which witnessed assassination attempts and bombings against Saudi diplomats; and in Moscow, where he went as the first ambassador of the Kingdom in the Soviet Union, but as soon as he arrived, the entity collapsed, and the army turned against President Mikhail Gorbachev. He returned to Riyadh where his credentials changed, to become the first ambassador to Russia under Boris Yeltsin. Khoja also recounts in his book chapters of his diplomatic career as an ambassador in Morocco.
The second episode reveals details about the ambassador’s mission in Lebanon and his relations with Lebanese leaders, including Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah.

Studies and Early Career

Khoja begins his memoirs talking about growing up in Makkah. As a young man, he moved to Cairo to complete his studies, to which he did not grant much attention.
“Judgment Day came at the end of the year, when the results were announced. They were disappointing. I failed in all subjects!” he recounts.

He then decided to leave Cairo and return to study at the University of Riyadh (King Saud University in Riyadh) and enrolled in the College of Science, Department of Chemistry and Geology. After his graduation, he moved to Britain, where he studied chemistry at the University of Birmingham in 1967.

Khoja talks about his studies at King Saud University. “The name of the university was later changed to ‘University of Riyadh’, and that happened after King Faisal took power, in the year 1384 AH – 1964 A.D. During those years, the capital witnessed great development under the administration of its young prince, Salman bin Abdulaziz… The dreamy, quiet city… soon became a modern, ambitious, and entrenched capital.”

Upon his return to Saudi Arabia from Britain, Khoja noticed the growing Brotherhood activity in the Kingdom. In 1976, he was appointed Undersecretary of the Ministry of Information for Media Affairs, where he worked for eight years under the supervision of Minister Dr. Muhammad Abdo Yamani.

“At that time, we were between the jaws of pliers… the trend of modernity that was at the height of its power, and the reactionary awakening movement at the height of its enthusiasm. We suffered from the contradictory criticisms of the two parties,” the book recounts, as unofficially translated to English by Asharq Al-Awsat.

The Saudi Embassy in Turkey

Khoja left the Ministry of Information after Dr. Yamani was relieved from duties in 1983. Two years later he was appointed ambassador to Turkey.
He moved to Ankara and presented his credentials to President Kenan Evren. The Prime Minister then was Turgut Ozal.
The Saudi ambassador talks about Ozal, who was in office from 1983 to 1989, before assuming the presidency of Turkey: “He was wise, intelligent, open-minded, with Islamic inclinations, and he is the man of economic modernization... Perhaps I would not exaggerate if I said that this man is the second founder of Turkey, after Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.”

During his time in Turkey, Saudi diplomats faced assassinations and bombings, as he was personally the target of a failed assassination attempt. But Khoja admits that he does not know who was behind these attacks.
“But my reading of the situation indicates that this has to do with the Iraq-Iran war,” he notes.
The Saudi ambassador talks about his efforts to persuade the Turks of the Saudi position that rejected the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

The Saudi Embassy in Moscow

After the liberation of Kuwait, Prince Saud al-Faisal, then Saudi Foreign Minister, informed him in 1991 that King Fahd wanted him to become “our first ambassador to the Soviet Union.”

“As I was preparing to present my credentials to President (Mikhail) Gorbachev, the collapse began with amazing speed. Republics declared independence from the Soviet Union, and others withdrew from the Warsaw Pact. Suddenly, the union collapsed as a pile of paper,” he tells in his book.

As he went back to Riyadh to change his credentials, he was received by Prince Saud Al-Faisal, who shouted at him: “What have you done?!”
Khoja was confused and did not answer. So the prince laughed, saying: “You dismantled the union and came back?”

Thus, he became the first ambassador of Saudi Arabia in Moscow. He stayed with his colleagues in a hotel because there was no Saudi diplomatic mission in Russia. He reveals that Saudi Arabia bought one of the 12 former palaces of hospitality, located on the hills of the capital, overlooking the famous Moscow River, before buying a building near the headquarters of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

The Saudi Embassy in Morocco

After Moscow, Khojah moved to work as an ambassador in Morocco (at the beginning of 1996 until 2004).

It was “one of the most beautiful political, cultural and social experience of my life,” he says.

During that period, he met a distinguished king, Hassan II, and after his death, “I worked with King Mohammed VI, who runs his country with full openness and maturity, who loves his people and his people love him.”

His mission in Morocco was marked by the September 11, 2001 attacks.

“One of the repercussions of these events in Morocco was the arrest of an Al-Qaeda cell consisting of three Saudis and others who planned attacks against American and British ships in the Strait of Gibraltar, in addition to targets in Ceuta, Melilla and other Moroccan cities. The cell members were sentenced to 10 years in prison,” he recounts.

“With the approval of King Mohammed VI, I was able to deport the accused to the Kingdom. Those would serve their sentences there and be interrogated again by the Saudi security services.”

After 15 years of absence from the Saudi embassy in Morocco, Khoja found himself returning to it in 2016, upon the orders of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz.

That period witnessed tension on social media in Saudi-Moroccan relations over the Moroccan application to host the World Cup 2026.

He says that some wanted - for purely political reasons - to hold the Kingdom responsible for the event going from Morocco to America, Canada and Mexico.

“This is not true at all,” he notes, “but comments on social media got out of control because of the poisons transmitted by the (Brotherhood) electronic cells, and I found that it is my duty to issue a statement that puts things in perspective.”

Pakistan's children are losing weeks of education each year to school closures caused by climate change-linked extreme weather, prompting calls for a radical rethink of learning schedules.

Searing heat, toxic smog and unusual cold snaps have all caused closures that are meant to spare children the health risks of learning in classrooms that are often overcrowded and lack basic cooling, heating or ventilation systems.

In May, a nationwide heatwave saw temperatures up to seven degrees Celsius above normal, hitting 45C (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in Punjab and prompting several provinces to cut school hours or start summer holidays early.

"The class becomes so hot that it feels like we are sitting in a brick kiln," said 17-year-old Hafiz Ehtesham outside an inner-city Lahore school.

"I don't even want to come to school."

Pakistan is among the countries most vulnerable to climate change, with limited resources for adaptation, and extreme weather is compounding an existing education crisis caused mostly by access and poverty.

"Soon we will have major cognitive challenges because students are being impacted by extreme heat and extreme smog over long periods of time," said Lahore-based education activist Baela Raza Jamil.

"The poorest are most vulnerable. But climate change is indeed a great leveler and the urban middle class is also affected."

Pakistan's summers historically began in June, when temperatures hit the high 40s. But in the last five years, May has been similarly hot, according to the Meteorological Department.

"During a power outage, I was sweating so much that the drops were falling off my forehead onto my desk," 15-year-old Jannat, a student in Lahore, told AFP.

"A girl in my class had a nosebleed from the heat."

- Health versus learning -

Around a third of Pakistani school-age children -- over 26 million -- are out of school, according to government figures, one of the highest numbers in the world.

And 65 percent of children are unable to read age-appropriate material by age 10.

School closures affect almost every part of Pakistan, including the country's most populous province Punjab, which has the highest rates of school attendance.

Classes closed for two weeks in November over air pollution, and another week in May because of heat. In the previous academic year, three weeks were lost in January to a cold snap and two weeks in May due to heat.

Political unrest and cricket matches that closed roads meant more lost days.

In Balochistan, Pakistan's poorest province, May heatwaves have prompted early summer vacations for three years running, while in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, school hours are regularly slashed.

For authorities, the choice is often between sending children to school in potentially dangerous conditions or watching them fall behind.

In southern Sindh province, authorities have resisted heat-related closures despite growing demands from parents.

"It's hard for parents to send their children to school in this kind of weather," private school principal Sadiq Hussain told AFP in Karachi, adding that attendance drops by 25 percent in May.

"Their physical and mental health is being affected," added Dost Mohammad Danish, general secretary of All Sindh Private Schools and Colleges Association.

"Don't expect better scientists from Pakistan in the coming years."

- 'Everyone is suffering' -

Schools in Pakistan are overseen by provincial authorities, whose closure notices apply to all schools in a region, even when they are hundreds of kilometers (miles) apart and may be experiencing different conditions, or have different resources to cope.

Teachers, parents and education experts want a rethink of school hours, exam timetables and vacations, with schools able to offer Saturday classes or split the school day to avoid the midday heat.

Izza Farrakh, a senior education specialist at the World Bank, said climate change-related impacts are affecting attendance and learning outcomes.

"Schools need to have flexibility in determining their academic calendar. It shouldn't be centralized," she said, adding that end-of-year exams usually taken in May could be replaced by regular assessments throughout the year.

Adapting school buildings is also crucial.

International development agencies have already equipped thousands of schools with solar panels, but many more of the country's 250,000 schools need help.

Hundreds of climate-resilient schools funded by World Bank loans are being built in Sindh. They are elevated to withstand monsoon flooding, and fitted with solar panels for power and rooftop insulation to combat heat and cold.

But in Pakistan's most impoverished villages, where education is a route out of generational poverty, parents still face tough choices.

In rural Sukkur, the local school was among 27,000 damaged or destroyed by unprecedented 2022 floods. Children learn outside their half-collapsed school building, unprotected from the elements.

"Our children are worried, and we are deeply concerned," said parent Ali Gohar Gandhu, a daily wage laborer. "Everyone is suffering."

Memoirs of Abdulaziz Khoja… from the Soviet Collapse to Mysterious Murder Attempts in Turkey – Part One