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Pik Botha, a key figure in the transition from South Africa to apartheid, died at the age of 86.
Mr Botha served as Foreign Minister of his country for 17 years until the end of the apartheid era in 1994.
He spent most of his career defending the apartheid system, even though he was considered a liberal figure.
But he also served as a minister in Nelson Mandela's first post-apartheid government, praising Mr. Mandela as a healer.
Mr. Botha's son, Piet, confirmed to the South African media that his father had died during the night.
Roelof Frederik Botha was born in 1932 in Rustenburg, in the Transvaal.
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He began his diplomatic career at the South African Mission in Stockholm in 1953 and turned to politics in the 1970s.
He became an envoy to the United States and the UN, then served as Foreign Minister in 1977, mainly from PW Botha, to whom he was not related and who died. in 2006.
The 1980s faced tough challenges facing the rise of international opposition to the apartheid regime.
Pik Botha then served as Minister of Mining and Energy Affairs with Mr. Mandela from 1994 to 1996, when he retired from politics.
In an interview with the BBC in 2013, he congratulated Mandela on "his ability to forgive and his will to improve the country".
He said Mr. Mandela had told him, "We need each other to succeed."
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