During a thirty-nine year career in the foreign service and as a renowned diplomat, the late Abdul Sattar served as Foreign Secretary and a two-term Ambassador in New Delhi. He was inducted as Foreign Minister in the interim cabinet in 1993, and again from 1999–2002. He published an article on the Shimla Agreement in Pakistani and Indian academic magazines; a research paper on reducing nuclear dangers in South Asia in The Nonproliferation Review; and a number of articles on international affairs in Pakistani and foreign journals. From 2005 to 2009, he was the foreign affairs editor and a regular columnist for the Pakistan Observer.