‘She did a great deal for world’

US President Barack Obama led the global tributes to Margaret Thatcher, saying the “world has lost one of the great champions of freedom and liberty”.

He added: “Here in America, many of us will never forget her standing shoulder to shoulder with President Reagan, reminding the world that we are not simply carried along by the currents of history – we can shape them with moral conviction, unyielding courage and iron will.”

Two former US presidents also described Baroness Thatcher as an iconic stateswoman George W Bush said: “She was an inspirational leader who stood on principle and guided her nation with confidence and clarity.”

Bill Clinton added: “I respected the conviction and self-determination she displayed throughout her remarkable life as she broke barriers, defied expectations and led her country.”

Her role in the end of the Cold War was recognised by former Polish president Lech Walesa who said: “She did a great deal for the world, along with Ronald Reagan, pope John Paul II and (Polish trade union) Solidarity, she contributed to the demise of communism in Poland and Central Europe.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel – born in eastern Germany – said: “She was an extraordinary leader in global politics of her time. I will never forget her part in surmounting the division of Europe and at the end of the Cold War.”

Former Czech president Vaclav Klaus said: “She was one of the most prominent political figures in the last quarter of the 20th century, and I believe that in the passage of time, her name will not lose its importance.”

Reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said: “We managed to achieve a mutual understanding, and that contributed to a change in the atmosphere between our country and the West and the end of the Cold War.”

Australian prime minister Julia Gillard said: “Her service as the first female prime minister of the UK was a history- making achievement.”

President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso praised Lady Thatcher as a “circumspect yet engaged player in the European Union”.

“She signed the Single European Act and helped bring about the Single Market. She was a leading player in bringing into the European family the Central and Eastern European countries which were formerly behind the Iron Curtain.

Margaret Thatcher and French president Francois Mitterand at a press conference in Downing Street, in November 1985

“Britain under Mrs Thatcher’s leadership was very supportive of the enlargement of the European Union.”

President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz called her a committed European – at least at the start of her premiership.

President of Ireland Michael D Higgins said: “The policies of Mrs Thatcher’s government in regard to Northern Ireland gave rise to considerable debate at the time.

“However, her key role in signing the Anglo-Irish Agreement will be recalled as a valuable early contribution to the search for peace and political stability.”

Micheal Martin, leader of opposition Fianna Fail, said: “It would be wrong not to acknowledge that the long journey towards the peace and respect that we enjoy between Britain and Ireland today, took its first faltering steps in the bilateral discussions between Mrs Thatcher and former taoiseach Charles Haughey.

“Unfortunately, her uncompromising approach to the escalating crisis in the early 1980s may actually have acted as a major boost for the recruitment efforts of the Provisional IRA at that time.”

South African’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) party expressed its sadness at Lady Thatcher’s death.

Margaret Thatcher and other world chiefs at the start of the first working session of the World Economic Summit in 1985

A statement said: “The ANC was on the receiving end of her policy in terms of refusing to recognise the ANC as the representatives of South Africans and her failure to isolate Apartheid after it had been described as a crime against humanity, however we acknowledge that she was one of the strong leaders in Britain and Europe to an extent that some of her policies dominate discourse in the public service structures of the world.”

Canada’s Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper said: “Margaret Thatcher had that rarest of abilities to herself personify and define the age in which she served.

“Indeed, with the success of her economic policies, she defined contemporary conservatism itself.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described her as a staunch friend of Israel and the Jewish people.

Meryl Streep, who played the former PM in the 2011 film, said: “To me she was a figure of awe for her personal strength and grit. To have come up, legitimately, through the ranks of the British political system, class bound and gender phobic as it was, in the time that she did and the way that she did, was a formidable achievement.”