Sushma Swaraj leads Indian delegation to UN General Assembly session
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has arrived in New York to lead the Indian delegation at the annual UN General Assembly (UNGA) session. Swaraj faces a packed schedule during her week-long stay where she's expected to hold nearly 20 bilateral and multilateral meetings with world leaders attending the session. She is expected to discuss issues of climate change, terrorism, people-centric migration, and peacekeeping.
Swaraj will kick off her New York visit with a trilateral meeting today with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono. The three are expected to discuss how to boost cooperation amid China's growing military aspirations in the Indo-Pacific region.
Swaraj will also participate in an important meeting hosted by the US and chaired by President Donald Trump on UN reforms. India is one of 120 countries supporting efforts to reform the UN. It has said the UN reforms should be "broad-based and all-encompassing" and not just limited to the Secretariat, which is headed by the UN Secretary-General.
During her visit, Swaraj will be participating in a special panel of countries selected by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on climate change. On September 23, she will address the UNGA. She will have meetings with Tunisian Foreign Minister Khemaies Jhinaoui, Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay, Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen, Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics and her Bolivian counterpart Fernando Huanacuni Mamani.
India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Syed Akbaruddin ruled out any bilateral meeting between Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart. The two leaders will, however, face each other during multilateral meetings of SAARC and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
