PM Modi to visit US for high-level UNGA session in September

United Nations, Aug 14 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to participate in the high-level United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session and address it on September 26, according to the preliminary programme.

This will be a milestone meeting for the UN, which turns 80 this year and the General Assembly's theme is "Better Together: 80 Years and More for Peace, Development and Human Rights".

A high-level meeting will be held on September 22 to commemorate the 80th anniversary.

The next day, the regular high-level sessions will start with the first address, as per tradition, by Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

He will be followed by US President Donald Trump.

Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping of China will not be attending the high-level session.

Presidents Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, and Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran are on the list of speakers.

In the September 26 morning session that starts at 9 a.m. (6:30 p.m. in India), PM Modi will be preceded by Prime Ministers Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Li Qiang of China, and Keir Starmer of Britain.

Prime Ministers Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan, K.P. Sharma Oli of Nepal, and Tshering Tobgay of Bhutan are pencilled in later that session.

Bangladesh's "prime minister" is listed as the morning session's last speaker, and it will likely be Muhammad Yunus, who styles himself as the Chief Advisor to the caretaker government set up after the overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

PM Modi's address this year will be his seventh to the General Assembly's high-level session.

(Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in)

--IANS

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