Trump meet on UN reforms also on cards

External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj is expected to meet her United States counterpart Rex Tillerson for the first time this week on the sideline of the annual UN General Assembly and will attend a multilateral meeting chaired by President Donald Trump on the issue of reforming the world body.

Trump, a long-time critic of the United Nations, has backed a proposal by the UN secretary general António to streamline the secretariat. The changes are largely administrative and will not go into the larger reform of the UN Security Council.

India is supporting the effort as it is generally “pro-reform”. India, a leading claimant to a permanent seat, would like to see progress on the expansion of the UNSC to include more permanent members.

Asked about a possible move by Pakistan to raise Kashmir at the UN, as it has in the past, India’s permanent representative to the UN, Syed Akbaruddin, said Pakistan will be predictable if it did so, but it might be noted that the issue has not been discussed in the world body for the past 40 years.

The more substantive interaction will be Swaraj’s meeting with Tillerson, but officials said they were working on the date and time. The two leaders have spoken on phone before but this will be their first meeting, to be followed soon enough by their second, as part of the 2-by-2 dialogue.

India and the United States announced a new 2-by-2 talks format simultaneously involving the foreign and defence ministers of the two countries, replacing the earlier version that involved the foreign and commerce ministers. The new dialogue is slated for later this month, to be hosted by India.

Though Swaraj has no structured bilateral meetings with counterparts from China and Pakistan, she will see them at meetings of multilateral bodies of which they are members, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS.

“They are known to say hello to each other and exchange pleasantries at these multilateral forums,” an official said on background, “but no structured bilateral meetings have been lined up with China or Pakistan.”

Both the countries could by name or by reference figure in Swaraj’s speech. Specially Pakistan’s role in abetting cross-border terrorism.