Tariq Aziz ( , né: Mikhail Yuhanna ( , baptized Manuel Christo; born 28 April 1936) was the Foreign Minister (1983 – 1991) and Deputy Prime Minister (1979 – 2003) of Iraq and a close advisor of former President Saddam Hussein. Their association began in the 1950s when both were activists for the then-banned Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. He is an ethnic Assyrian but an Arab Nationalist and a member of the Chaldean Catholic Church. On 17 November 2010, it was reported that Iraqi President Jalal Talabani declared that he would not sign Aziz's execution order.