UNGA president-elect to visit India on Monday

From Yoshita Singh United Nations, Aug 25 (PTI) UN General AssemblyPresident-elect Ambassador Peter Thomson will travel to Indiaearly next week during which he is expected to meet PrimeMinister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister SushmaSwaraj and discuss the ambitious SDGs. Thomson, the Permanent Representative of Fiji elected inJune as President of the UNGA’s upcoming 71st session, willvisit China later this week and will then travel to India. On August 29, the President-elect will be in New Delhiwhere it is planned that he will meet with Modi, Swaraj andSecretary for External Relations, Sujata Mehta, a pressrelease from the office of the President of the UN GeneralAssembly said yesterday. "Coming from the Asia-Pacific nation of Fiji, I ampleased to have this opportunity to visit the two biggestcountries in the regional group to which I belong," Thomsonsaid, adding that he looks forward to the "high-level" talkshe will have with the Governments of China and India. "My main interest will be to discuss how the UnitedNations can assist and accelerate the implementation of the2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development," he added. He will attend official meetings in Beijing tomorrow andis expected to meet with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, StateCouncillor Yang Jiechi and Minister of Foreign Affairs WangYi. Swaraj will travel to New York later next month to attendthe high-level General Debate of the 71st session of theGeneral Assembly. She will address global leaders from theiconic lectern of the General Assembly on September 26. Modi, who had addressed the UN General Assembly sessionsin 2014 and 2015, will not be attending this year’s UNGAsession. Thomson’s visit to India assumes significance against thebackdrop of New Delhi leading efforts for early completion ofthe long-pending reforms of the UN Security Council. In July, India’s push to achieve urgent reforms of the15-nation Council by this year and secure a permanent seat onthe horse-shoe table had suffered a setback when the 193-member General Assembly decided to roll over discussions onreforming the world body’s top organ to its 71st session. India had been pushing for completing reforms of the UNSecurity Council in the 70th session of the General Assembly,which will end next month. Thomson will preside over the 71st session, which willbegin on September 13, amid expectations from a majority ofmember states that the UNSC reform process will accelerate andconcrete results will be achieved in reforming the mostpowerful organ of the UN. India along with the G4 nations had said it was"unfortunate" that momentum could not build up over UNSCreforms in the 70th session. PTI YASSAI