PM to attend UN meet next week

MeA is scrambling to make the four-day visit of PM to New York a tangible one.

Now that a meeting with US President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the 66th UN General Assembly is almost ruled out and with Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani announcing his inability to attend the summit due to the serious flood situation back home,the MeA is scrambling to make the four-day visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to New York a tangible one.

While Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai,during a pre-visit briefing,said the final schedule of bilateral meetings for the Prime Minister was still being finalised,meetings between Singh and Sri Lankan President Mahindra Rajapaksa and newly-appointed Nepal Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai during the high-level segment of the 66th General Assembly are almost a certainty.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,who will be leaving for New York on September 21,would be addressing the General Debate (on September 24) after a gap of three years and is expected to make a strong bid for UN reforms as well as push for an expeditious introduction of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism. During his last address at the UNGA,PM Manmohan Singh had noted how there was little progress on the core elements of the UN reform agenda.

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He will be accompanied by External Affairs Minister S M Krishna,his Principal Secretary T K A Nair,National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon and the Foreign Secretary.

Among other engagements,Krishna will be attending the annual Commonwealth Foreign Ministers meet; the Ministerial meeting of BRICS; the annual meeting of Foreign Ministers of G-77,the trilateral IBSA (India,Brazil,South Africa) Ministerial meeting as well as a crucial consultataion of the extended troika of the Rio Group.

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UN General Assembly meet

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