Aziz Pahad matriculated at Central Indian High School, Johannesburg in 1959. He graduated in 1963 from the University of the Witwatersrand in Sociology and Afrikaans. He obtained a Diploma in International Relations from University College, London in 1966 and an Master of Arts degree from the University of Sussex in 1968.
He is the brother of Essop Pahad Under the apartheid regime in South Africa, Aziz Pahad was given a banning order in 1963, restricting his movement and preventing him from attending public meetings In 1966, he left South Africa and lived mostly in London but also spent some time in Angola and Zimbabwe. He started working full-time for the African National Congress, developing the Anti-Apartheid Movement in the United Kingdom and Europe.
In 1991, a year after he returned to South Africa from exile, he was appointed deputy head of the African National Congress Department of International Affairs.
He was re-elected in the 1999 election. Since his appointment as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pahad has played a key role in shaping the African National Congress government"s policies.
His was a prominent role in South Africa"s attempt to stop the United States-led attack on Iraq in 2003. He represented his country in 2004 at the International Court of Justice when South Africa argued strongly against Israel"s erection of a security fence.
He told the court: "The Palestinian separation wall is not a security wall.
lieutenant is a wall of occupation, a wall that has separated hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their families, their homes, lands and religious sites." In Africa, Pahad played an active role in bringing peace to the warring factions of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Angola. He visited Saudi Arabia in March 2006 to promote bilateral political and economic relations between the two countries. On 20 April 1997 Aziz Pahad was quoted in the Israeli daily newspaper Ha"aretz as confirming that the 1979 flash over the Indian Ocean (Vela Incident) was indeed from a South African nuclear test.
Soon afterwards, Pahad reported that he had been misquoted by Ha"aretz and that he was merely repeating rumours that had been circulating for years.
In 1985, he was elected a National Executive Committee member of the African National Congress – a position he still holds. Foreign the next three years, Aziz Pahad served as a member of the National Peace Executive Committee and of the Transitional Executive Council"s sub-committee on Foreign Affairs. In 1994, he was elected a Member of Parliament and was appointed Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs in the government of President Nelson Mandela.
Following the resignation of President Thabo Mbeki in September 2008, Pahad was among those members of the Cabinet who submitted their resignations on 23 September, although it was subsequently announced that he might be willing to remain in his post.
