Zuma, ministers heading for the UN
– President Jacob Zuma will attend the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly next week to participate in a general debate on peace and sustainability, his office said yesterday.
The president of the session is Slovakian Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcák, who has announced that the theme of the debate will be “Focusing on People: Striving for Peace and a Decent Life for all on a Sustainable Planet”.
Zuma will be accompanied by the ministers of international re-
Cape Town
lations, state security, defence, environmental affairs and water and sanitation on the six-day trip to New York.
On the sidelines of the General Assembly, he will host an event in honour of the late ANC president Oliver Tambo, who was born a century ago, on Wednesday.
The assembly is the first to take place under the new secretary-general of the United Nations, António Guterres, who began his term in January.
“Guterres identified his major priority as the achievement of sustainable peace and security through conflict prevention by establishing a ‘culture of prevention’ in the UN, which South Africa fully supports,” the presidency said.
Zuma will sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on September 20. He will also participate in a debate convened by Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, who holds the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council for September, on the reform of UN peacekeeping missions. – ANA