By KUNA
Washington : Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Tom Lantos declared on Wednesday he will not seek re-election at the end of his term because he was diagnosed with cancer.
“Routine medical tests have revealed that I have cancer of the esophagus. In view of this development and the treatment it will require, I will not seek re-election,” he said in a statement released by his office.
Lantos, a Democrat, has been a leading member in Congress since 1980 after being elected 14 times, was selected by his colleagues in January 2007 to lead the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“It is only in the United States that a penniless survivor of the Holocaust and a fighter in the anti-Nazi underground could have received an education, raised a family, and had the privilege of serving the last three decades of his life as a member of Congress,” he added in the statement. Lantos has called in the past period for US diplomacy to engage with Syria, Iran and Libya and he is one of the leading voices in Congress on matters of foreign policy.
“I will never be able to express fully my profoundly felt gratitude to this great country,” concluded Lantos.