PM Modi slated to address world leaders at high-level UNGA meet in New York in September

United Nations, Aug 20 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi is slated to address world leaders at the high-level meeting of the General Assembly in September, according to a preliminary schedule.

His address is set for the afternoon session on September 25 that runs from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. in New York, corresponding to 12:30 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. the next day in India.

The timing of his address is likely to be adjusted when the schedule is finalised to an hour that is convenient for audiences in India.

PM Modi has attended six high-level UN sessions, starting in 2014 soon after his election.

The 81st session of the General Assembly will be presided over by Bangladesh Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman, who was elected president in June.

‘Restoring trust, managing transformation: A United Nations that delivers for all’ is the theme he has set for the session.

Away from the General Assembly’s podium where presidents, kings, prime ministers, princes and ministers will deliver their formal addresses, real work gets done on the sidelines.

The leaders will hold several hundred formal and informal meetings among themselves, many away from the public glare.

The high-level week will open on September 22, and by tradition Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will be the first speaker, and will be followed by US President Donald Trump.

According to UN protocol, the heads of state (presidents and monarchs) speak first, followed by heads of government (prime ministers) and then the others (deputy prime ministers, ministers and heads of missions).

Two key world leaders, Presidents Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia, will not be at the meeting, according to the schedule.

Xi is reported to be skipping the UN meeting and going to Washington for a summit with Trump that week.

With attention focused on the conflict in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian is scheduled to speak on September 23.

From the other major hotspot, the General Assembly will hear Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rahman is scheduled for September 24, while Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is pencilled in for the same session as PM Modi the next day afternoon.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on the schedule for September 24, but he need have no fears of being arrested by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who made the buffoonery threat to appeal to his Islamic base.

He later admitted that he did not have the power to arrest Netanyahu.

At the campaign meeting where Mamdani threatened Netanyahu, he also said that he would not meet PM Modi.

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

–IANS

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