A. Ghorbal, 80; Egyptian Envoy to U.S., Peace Broker

Ashraf Ghorbal, a longtime ambassador to the United States and a member of the Egyptian negotiating team that worked out the first Arab peace deal with Israel, has died, the State Department said Wednesday. He was 80.

Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice learned with great sadness “of the passing of a great friend to the United States.”

“Ambassador Ghorbal played a critical role in the developments that led to the historic signing of a peace treaty with Israel at Camp David,” McCormack said in a statement. “His efforts to promote lasting peace and understanding in the region will not soon be forgotten.”

Circumstances of Ghorbal’s death Tuesday were unavailable. Friends said he had been in failing health for some time.

Ghorbal was ambassador to Washington in 1978 when President Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland’s mountains near Washington to talk peace.

Leaving the embassy in the hands of his deputy, Mohammed Shaker, Ghorbal stayed at Camp David during the 13 days. He was one of the people Sadat considered to replace Foreign Minister Mohammed Ibrahim Kamel after Kamel resigned in protest of the looming accords with Israel.

The Camp David documents led to a peace treaty in 1979, the first between the Jewish state and one of its Arab neighbors.

Ghorbal had been Sadat’s press advisor from February 1973 through the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, which ended in a stalemate.

Sadat sent Ghorbal as Egypt’s ambassador to Washington, where he had served since 1968 as head of the Egyptian interests section in the Indian Embassy. He remained ambassador until 1984, three years after the current Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, succeeded the assassinated Sadat.

Born in Alexandria, Egypt, in May 1925, Ghorbal was educated at Cairo University and Harvard University. He began his diplomatic career with the Egyptian delegation to the United Nations in 1949.