Meller (above), who was not aligned with any party, became foreign minister in 2005, serving under Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz of the conservative Law and Justice party. -- PHOTO: AFP

Meller died on Monday after a long and serious illness, Polish media reported on Tuesday, without giving details. Another former foreign minister, Adam Daniel Rotfeld, confirmed the death.

Meller, who was not aligned with any party, became foreign minister in 2005, serving under Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz of the conservative Law and Justice party.

However, he quit the post in spring 2006 to protest the Law and Justice leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski's decision to form a coalition with two smaller Euro-skeptic parties, the populist Self-Defense and the right-wing League of Polish Families.

'He was a person of great intellectual abilities,' Rotfeld said on TVN24 television. 'He was well-liked. It is hard for me to accept that he is no longer with us,' he added. 'I knew he was ill but I was sure he would overcome the illness.'

Meller was born July 4, 1942, in Lyon, France, where his Jewish family had gone just before World War II. The family returned to Poland after the war, and Meller studied history at Warsaw University.

He was banned from official jobs for six years after a communist-sponsored anti-Semitic purge in 1968. Nevertheless, he pursued a career as a historian specializing in the French Revolution.

After communism fell, Meller served as ambassador to France from 1996-2001 and as ambassador to Russia from 2002-2006, before joining the government of Marcinkiewicz. -- AP