* Arrives today to attend UN General Assembly
* Expected to meet Holbrooke, Hillary, Gates, Spanish and Dutch PMs and NATO chief among others
* Will co-chair FoDP summit, attend UN’s ‘major troop-and-police contributing countries’ meeting
ISLAMABAD: A packed schedule awaits President Asif Ali Zardari, who will arrive in New York today to lead the Pakistani delegation to the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly, which is set to deal with some pressing global challenges.
The president would attend a string of summit-level conferences and hold talks with his counterparts from around the world, top US and UN officials, and attend a ceremony where late Benazir Bhutto would be posthumously honoured, according to a press release.
Zardari's delegation would include Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Finance Minister Shaukat Tareen, Interior Minister Rehman Malik, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Prime Minister Sardar Muhammad Yaqoob Khan, National Reconstruction Bureau Chairman Asim Hussain, Environment Minister Hameedullah Jan Afridi and Awami National Party chief Asfandyar Wali Khan, as well as other senior government officials.
Talking to reporters, Pakistan's Ambassador to the UN Abdullah Hussain Haroon said on Friday that the president's programme had to be fixed within the brief period between Eidul Fitr and the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, scheduled for September 24 to 25. "The schedule is very, very tight," Haroon said.
Co-host: He said the president would be co-hosting a summit meeting of the Friends of Democratic Pakistan (FoDP) group with US President Barack Obama and British PM Gordon Brown, which aims at helping the country overcome the economic and security challenges that it faces.
The September 24 meeting, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session, would mark the first anniversary of the initiative that Zardari took in September 2008.
The invitees include: Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Norway, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, the European Commission, European Union, United Nations, the Asian Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank and World Bank.
On Thursday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who would attend the meeting, called for supporting Zardari's government as it continued to fight terrorism.
The president's would also hold bilateral meetings with Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez, Netherlands PM Jan Peter Balkende, US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayid Al Nahyan. US Envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke would also be meeting the president.
Haroon said efforts were being made to accommodate more heads of state who wanted to meet Zardari.
The president would also attend a debate at the Clinton Global Initiative, which brings together world leaders to take action on global challenges. The initiative was launched by former US president Bill Clinton in 2007.
Peacekeeping operations: Zardari would address the UN General Assembly on September 25 and participate in a summit-level meeting of ‘major troop-and-police contributing countries’ being convened by Obama for a review of the UN peacekeeping operations.
With around 11,000 troops, Pakistan is one of the largest troop contributors, constituting 11 percent of the total UN Peace-keeping Force. "We welcome the initiative of the US president in convening a summit-level conference of troop-contributing countries," Haroon said. "We hope this conference will go a long way in creating a better understanding about the role of peacekeeping," he added.
More than 20 heads of state and representatives from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Ghana, France, United Kingdom, the United States, Russia and China were likely to attend the conference. The objective of the conference was to get the input of troop contributing countries on reforms and up-gradation of UN peacekeeping activities.
Zardari would be the keynote speaker at the 4th Global Creative Leadership Summit of the Louise Blouin Foundation, where Benazir along with Matti Vanhanen – former PM of Finland – Bruce Mau – a creative director – and Dr Craig Venter – a leading scientist known for decoding the genome of the first living organism – would be conferred awards at a ceremony to be attended by several world leaders. Haroon said the president had designated the environment minister to represent Pakistan at the high-level meeting on Climate Change, convened by the UN chief and scheduled for September 22. Ban Ki-moon has been pushing world leaders to "seal the deal" on a greenhouse gas emissions treaty at a climate change conference later this year. app
source dailytimes
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