New Delhi, Sep 1 (IANS) Against the backdrop of Security Council reforms gathering momentum and the world looking at India’s leadership role in resolving complex global issues, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is set to go to New York later this month to participate in the UN General Assembly (UNGA) session.
Manmohan Singh will participate in the UNGA after a gap of two years. He last went to New York in September 2008, a visit overshadowed by his meeting with Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and his last meeting with then US president George Bush in Washington in the final stages of negotiations on the India-US nuclear deal.
A final decision on the prime minister’s visit will be taken early next week.
Manmohan Singh’s visit, expected in the last week of September, will come nearly three weeks after India held the rotating chair of the UN Security Council for the month of August.
With a host of multilateral summits like the G20 and the East Asia summit coming up in the next few months, Manmohan Singh is expected to meet many world leaders on the sidelines of the UNGA.
India returned to the UN Security Council Jan 1, 2011 as a rotating non-permanent member after being elected by an overwhelming majority of the 193-member United Nations General Assembly last year.
During its presidency of the Security Council in August, India played a key role in preventing external military intervention in Syria, a plan pushed by the US, Britain and France, by adroitly mobilising IBSA members of the council, including Brazil and South Africa. Finally, the UNSC came out with a statement condemning human rights violations in the West Asian country, but avoided extreme positions.
