New UNGA President-elect arrives in New Delhi, India's UN representative holds talks with Volkan Bozkir

Sandeep Dikshit

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 22

Indian preparations for the forthcoming crucial sessions of the United Nations got into high gear with a meeting between President of the UN General Assembly (PGA) Volkan Bozkir and India’s Permanent Representative at the UN TS Tirumurti, who will be UNSC president for the month of August.

At the same time, the new President-elect of the UNGA (PGA) President Abdulla Shahid arrived here on an official visit. Bozkir will demit office and the India-backed Shahid will take over as UNGA President, beginning with the high-level segment of UN in September.

Tirumurti briefed Bozkir on India’s planned activities during its Presidency. It will focus on high-level open debates on maritime security, and on technology and peacekeeping, as well as a high-level briefing on the threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts, said the readout of the meeting.

The past year was tough for India with the Turkish diplomat as UNGA President since Ankara has close relations with Pakistan. Bozkir ruffled many feathers here by stating that it was Pakistan’s “duty” to raise the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in the United Nations “more strongly”. More galling for India, the comments were made during his visit to Islamabad.

The MEA had countered his comments saying, “when an incumbent president of the UN General Assembly makes misleading and prejudiced remarks, he does great disservice to the office he occupies’’.

However, there is little possibility of Shahid, currently Foreign Minister of the Maldives, visiting Islamabad since his government believes there is a Pakistani hand in the anti-India sentiments being whipped up currently in the Maldives.

India is the first country that Abdulla Shahid is visiting in his official capacity as PGA-Elect since his election on June 7. Shahid, though, is visiting New Delhi in both his avatars. As Foreign Minister, he will hold talks with his counterpart S Jaishankar on high- impact community projects planned by India in the Maldives. As PGA-elect, he will “exchange views on several global challenges that the UN is currently seized with,” said an MEA release.

Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla had visited New York a week back and met Bozkir. “We will be president of the UNSC in the month of August. We will make the best of our two-year term in the UNSC,” he had observed.